Longwood University men’s basketball coach Jayson Gee and his family will share their testimony of faith and family unity in the midst of trial with a showing of the award-winning documentary “The Battle For Brandon” on Sunday evening at New Life Church in Farmville.

In conjunction with New Life’s “College Sunday,” the one-hour film will be shown at 6 p.m. at the church with a Q&A session to follow, featuring Gee and his family. Admission to the event is free.

“I want people to see the unification of a family during a trial,” said Gee, Longwood’s fifth-year head coach. “I’m hoping that it sends a message to people that life brings trials, and families have an opportunity to stand together through the trials or they have a chance to disintegrate. We want to be that example of a family that chose to come together and support one another.”

Sunday’s showing of the documentary will be the first open screening in Farmville, as the film is scheduled for a theatrical release in 2018. Narrated by actress Jennifer Garner, the film outlines the fight against pediatric schizophrenia waged by Gee’s eldest child, Brandon. The film delves into the family’s battle to not only help Brandon combat his mental disease, but to bring him home from the day treatment facilities and psychiatric wards where he remained full time.

While Gee, a father of three, was working his way up the ranks of his own coaching career as an assistant at St. Bonaventure University in western New York and then at Cleveland State in Ohio, he stayed committed to visiting Brandon in the Buffalo, New York, psychiatric hospital where he resided. Gee’s car trips took more than an hour and a half each way while working at St. Bonaventure and living in Olean, New York, and upwards of four hours while at Cleveland State, all in spite of the fact there were days his meetings with Brandon might only last a few minutes, hinging on his son’s state of mind.

“It was important that we show the film in Farmville, our home, so that the story could directly impact the people we call our neighbors and friends,” Gee said.