I REMEMBER ME - THE FILM

[Guest guest]

I Remember Me

a film by Kim A. Snyder

 

An Award-Winning Documentary Film About

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

 

WINNER

Best Documentary

PEOPLES’ CHOICE AWARD

DENVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

 

" A compelling documentary that combines heartbreaking and soul-stirring

personal stories with investigative reporting about Chronic Fatigue

Syndrome "

 

Honorary Mention

Best Documentary

2000 HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

 

" A compassionate and inspirational documentary forged from the center of

the maelstrom, I REMEMBER ME is a step toward overcoming the healthcare

industry’s uncertainty, the government’s skepticism and society’s

stigmtization "

 

Fueled by the same rage at an unresponsive system that has birthed many

a great social documentary, filmmaker

Kim Snyder has taken up the mantle for the over 500,000 sufferers of

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) living in the United States today.

Afflicted with CFS herself, Snyder interweaves her own four years of

fighting with the stories of others who face the same challenges, from

U.S. Women's Soccer Star Michelle Akers to filmmaker Blake Edwards to a

high school senior preparing to attend his graduation after a two year

absence.

 

 

" Simultaneously beautiful and haunting,

I REMEMBER ME demystifies Chronic Fatigue

Syndrome with a compelling,

almost palpable force. "

- Elizabeth Karlsberg, Santa Barbara News-Press

 

 

 

Between May, 1984 and late 1986, over 300 people in Lake Tahoe, Nevada

became acutely ill with a flu-like sickness. Over fifteen years later,

many of them have not fully recovered, individuals across the country

have become ill, and the cause remains a medical mystery. Herein begins

the bizarre tale of an elusive malady that in 1988 the US Centers for

Disease Control named Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (aka CFS, CFIDS, ME).

 

I Remember Me is the first full-length documentary to explore the

controversial and mysterious history of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an

illness that, according to the CDC, is now forty times greater in

prevalence than previously estimated. Once dismissed as Yuppie Flu, this

mysterious syndrome, for which there is not yet a universally

acknowledged cause or cure, has prompted fierce debate within the

medical community.

 

" How do you come to know fact? " the filmmaker asks. Without scientific

proof, she concludes " you're left with personal anecdote " . So Snyder

sets off on a four year journey to investigate. Through the poignant

testimonies of dozens of individuals -- including film director Blake

Edwards (Pink Panther, 10), and Olympic gold Medalist and Women's World

Cup Soccer star Michelle Akers, whose brilliant career was recently cut

short by the illness, (set to the evocative music of legendary jazz

musician Keith Jarrett who was also sidelined by the illness for four

years) -- a chilling human drama unfolds which continues to baffle

scientists worldwide.

 

In her search for answers, Snyder unearths clusters of the illness

dating back to 1936. Residents of a sleepy Florida gulf coast town are

united forty years later to reflect on the illness that devastated

hundreds of folks in 1956 and was never diagnosed. We hear strikingly

similar accounts from local doctors in Incline Village, Nevada, the site

of the original Lake Tahoe cluster, and Lydonville, new York, a rural

upstate town where more than 200 people became ill in the mid-80's.

 

The story builds to an emotional climax as Steven, the severely disabled

Connecticut teen, attempts to make his high school graduation by way of

ambulance and gurney.

 

More than an account of an epidemic unfolding, I Remember Me speaks to

the universal themes of loss, human perseverance, and our difficulties

in grappling with uncertainty.

 

http://www.irememberme.com/thefilm.html

 

t © 2000 Loka Motion Productions, Inc.