Unrest (2017 film)
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| Unrest | |
| Directed by | Jennifer Brea |
| Produced by | Jennifer Brea, Lindsey Dryden, Patricia E. Gillespie, Alysa Nahmias, Deborah Hoffmann |
| Written by | Jennifer Brea, Kim Roberts |
| Music by | Bear McCreary |
| Cinematography | Sam Heesen, Christian Laursen |
| Edited by | Kim Roberts, Emiliano Battista |
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Unrest is a documentary film directed and produced by Jennifer Brea. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film will air in the United States on Independent Lens on the Public Broadcasting Service in January 2018.
Jennifer Brea was a Harvard PhD student about to marry the love of her life when she’s struck down by a fever that leaves her bedridden. Months before her wedding, she becomes progressively more ill, eventually losing the ability even to sit in a wheelchair. When doctors tell her it’s "all in her head," she goes online and finds a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome.
Unrest tells the story of Jennifer and her husband, Omar, newlyweds grappling with how to live in the face of a lifelong illness. In search of answers and initially bedbound, Jennifer sets off on a virtual voyage around the world, meeting four extraordinary ME patients in the US, UK, and Denmark. Their bedrooms connected by Skype and Facebook, these patients teach Jen how to make a life of meaning when everything changes.
Unrest is a first-person story of resilience in the face of life-altering loss, exploring how we treat people with illnesses we don’t yet understand — how confronting the fragility of life teaches us its value and, ultimately, how we all have the need to find community and connection.
The production of Unrest began when Brea picked up the camera to film her symptoms because she was being dismissed by doctors in the Spring of 2012.
Brea used a Skype teleprompter to conduct interviews, and eventually found a way to stream an onset camera to her computer. Gradually, she built a global team. The whole process took four years. She was bedridden throughout much of the production of the film, conducting interviews on Skype and directing remotely with producers and crews around the world. The film is an combination of professionally shot vérité, self-filmed iPhone videos, and interviews conducted via Skype.
The documentary premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 20. It will screen during the 2017 SXSW Film Festival in March. The film will be broadcast in the United States on Independent Lens on the Public Broadcasting Service January 8, 2018.
The film was well-received, garnering several glowing reviews and an award during its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Hollywood Reporter stated that "Brea offers an affecting film that, when made available on video, will be embraced by the millions suffering CFS worldwide". A review from Variety praised the movie as "a high-grade example of the form that’s consistently involving”.
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