Filmmaker-audience relationship in medical documentry

Abstract

As a filmmaker, as well as a person with epilepsy I would like more people to know about epilepsy on an intimate level even if they do not have, or know anyone with epilepsy. In this paper I will compare the techniques used to explain a medical disorder in three different films. What can the filmmaker do to both capture the attention of their audience in order to explain what life can be like for someone with a particular disorder? I argue that, by blending a personal approach with the use of experimental techniques, a filmmaker can appeal to a wider audience by expressing the emotional or experiential reality of living with a given disorder. My own thesis film, Seizing the Unrecorded, shows my own journey to understand how my filmmaking and my epilepsy are connected. Using similar techniques to those found in essay and performative films, I go beyond simply explaining what epilepsy is scientifically, and engage the viewer in larger questions such as the concept of what is memory, what it means to be vulnerable, and the emotional as well as physical costs of epilepsy.