LI filmmaker highlights DWI tragedy

G-Na Casazza was still reeling from her grandmother's death in a drunken driving crash in 2007 when she stepped into her first documentary filmmaking class at Hunter College months later.

Until then, the film major from Sayville had envisioned directing comedies or action movies.

But the calamity that ripped through her family focused Casazza on a new goal: making a documentary that would educate the public about the dangers of drunken driving.

On Nov. 11, the fourth anniversary of the crash that killed her grandmother, Virginia Casazza-Urgo, Casazza's labor of love, "One Fatal Mistake," premiered at Theater Three, a nonprofit arts venue in Port Jefferson. Now she wants to get the 45-minute film distributed in schools across Long Island and around the country.

"I want every kid in America to see this," Casazza, 22, said in an interview. "How hard is it to call a car service or a cab, or have a friend pick you up? It is such a careless decision not to do that."

Casazza-Urgo, of Valley Stream, was returning from celebrating her 62nd birthday at the Plainview Lounge with her sister, cousin and husband when a 2006 Mercedes-Benz driven by Sophia Santos, then 20, crashed into them.

Prosecutors said Santos ran a red light at the intersection of Wantagh Avenue and Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown and plowed into a 2005 Chevrolet being driven by Nancy Tumminello, of Elmont, killing Casazza-Urgo. Her cousin, Tumminello, and two other passengers -- sister Linda Chapman of Levittown and husband, John Urgo -- were injured.

Santos, the daughter of Hall of Fame jockey Jose Santos, who rode Funny Cide to victory in the 2003 Kentucky Derby, pleaded guilty in October 2008 to aggravated vehicular homicide. Prosecutors said Santos, of Albertson, had a blood-alcohol reading of .24 -- three times the legal limit -- at the time of the crash.

She was the first person in the state to be charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, which was passed by the Legislature days before the crash and provides stiffer penalties for drunken drivers. Santos agreed to a plea deal and is serving a 3- to 9-year prison sentence.

Interviewing family

"One Fatal Mistake" examines the tragedy and its aftermath through the eyes of six of Casazza-Urgo's grandchildren, ages 12 to 18.

Casazza interviews her siblings, cousins and her grandmother's husband, Urgo, 58, of Valley Stream, taking him back to the scene of the crash. Interspersed are snippets of home movies and family snapshots of Casazza-Urgo holding her grandchildren when they were infants and dancing with her husband at parties.

At one point in the documentary, Casazza recalls speaking to her grandmother the morning she was killed.

"When I hung up the phone I said, 'Bye grandma. I love you. I'll see you this weekend,' " she said. "I didn't know it was going to be me seeing her in a coffin."

Casazza says she made the film on a shoestring budget of about $1,000 and borrowed film equipment from a local school organization.

The grandchildren said Casazza-Urgo was a comforting, steady presence in their lives. Casazza said in high school, when her friends were at parties and on dates, she was often with her grandmother, shopping, getting bagels, or going to the beach.

When Casazza would wake up in the early morning, unable to sleep, she would often call her grandmother to chat.

"She was always on call," she said.

'It was very painful'

At first, Casazza said, some members of her family were uncomfortable when she told them just months after the crash that she was going to make a documentary about how it affected them.

"It just opened up wounds they didn't want to open up," she said.

In some cases, she said, she would ask her cousins to "practice" talking about their feelings with the camera off, then quietly turn it on without telling them. Gradually, she said her subjects started to find the conversations cathartic.

"It was very painful," said John Urgo. "But I wanted to be part of it, because I thought maybe something good could come out of it."

Casazza is selling the DVD through onefatalmistakemov ie.com for $15.

She says she still hopes one day to direct a blockbuster -- maybe even win an Oscar. But for now, she said, she just hopes she can get people to think through their actions before they do something they can't take back.

"I understand that people make mistakes, and drunken driving is a mistake that people make more than others," she said. "But it's not OK."