Deteriorated Film Utilized in Documentary to Portray Dementia

A recently produced documentary employs deteriorated 16mm film to illustrate “what dementia might feel like inside the mind.” Titled The Memory Boom, this production by Antosh Wojcik and Xenia Glenn, who are based in Dorset, delves into the effects of the neurological disorder. Mr. Wojcik stated, “Myself and Xenia have had our elders in our life experience dementia.” He expressed his aspiration that the film would allow viewers to closely experience the “disorientation” their loved ones endured. “We might gain a bit of understanding, with such a difficult thing that people in our lives are quite likely to go through,” Mr. Wojcik commented. The two filmmakers, operating as Sleepwalker Studios in Wimborne, received a commission for the project from an Exeter cinema, which had discovered the archival material. Ms. Glenn reported that The Phoenix cinema located several 16mm film reels within its basement and opted to have them digitized. The footage, comprising real-life scenes from the 1930s through the 1960s, was in a state of decay and deterioration. Included within the compromised footage were visuals of unnamed individuals vacationing and journeying across the globe. Ms. Glenn posed the question, “When I watched through the archive footage, it made me think, what do these images look and feel like and what might they remind people of?” She indicated that they sought inspiration from the local populace. She explained, “When we showed the archive footage to people around Dorset and Devon it reminded them of their grandparents who lived with dementia and so that was how the initial concept of the film came about.” Following this burst of inspiration, the team required slightly more than six weeks to assemble the production. She described the process of working with the damaged footage and attempting to reconstruct it as both “difficult” and “fun.” A voice-over and additional creative effects were incorporated alongside the archival film, aiming to illustrate how dementia impacts the human brain. The motion picture is scheduled to debut at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on 22 November, prior to screenings at the Phoenix Cinema in Exeter and subsequently at other local cinemas throughout Devon and Dorset. BBC Dorset can be followed on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content found on external websites. Information regarding our policy on external linking is available.