In The Quiet Epidemic, co-directors Lindsay Keys and Winslow Crane-Murdoch examine the controversial history of chronic Lyme disease diagnoses and treatment (or lack thereof) in the United States. We posed our Qs à la mode to Lindsay and Winslow, and here’s what they shared!
If we had to describe our film using only five adjectives, they would be: “Controversial, surprising, emotional, hopeful, disturbing.”
The thing that surprised us most about our film’s subject(s)/topic was: “That Lyme disease impacts so many people around the world, and they all share similar stories of being dismissed and ignored. We were also surprised to learn that tick populations are exploding across the world due to climate change, and up to 19 pathogens can be transmitted by ticks.”
Our favorite moment/scene/sequence in our film is: “When Julia and her father are at a stem-cell clinic in India, and just received the results of a scan of Julia’s brain. At the beginning of Julia’s Lyme journey, she was dismissed as faking her illness. Five years into their fight to get Julia better, she and her father saw concrete evidence for the first time that showed the cause of her debilitating symptoms. A few weeks later the clinic shut down and it’s unclear whether the test was valid or not. Nevertheless, this scene shows just how far people will go to try to heal, and how few answers there are for those suffering with Lyme disease.”
The toughest part of the whole shoot was: “At the beginning of production, we were both very sick with Lyme disease ourselves — we met at our doctor’s office. We were traveling around the country, and under a lot of stress trying to fund the film and prove that this story was worth making. At times it felt like a miracle that we could stand up and hold our cameras. Our personal experience gave us the drive to keep going.”
Our most invaluable piece of doc-making gear was/is: “A SmallHD monitor.”
Our go-to, get-us-through snack of choice for long shoots or epic editing sessions is: “Due to Lyme, we had to change our diets — we had to stop eating sugar, gluten and dairy. Acai bowls became the sweetest treat we could enjoy while feeling well. We looked forward to them after long shoots.”
Another Hot Docs 2022 film we’re excited to see is: “Mija.”
Wanna check out their film or just learn more about it?
Get the scoop, and your tickets, here!
