D Is for Distance

The subject of D IS FOR DISTANCE is Louis, a teenager suffering from debilitating epilepsy who is the son of co-directors Christopher Petit and Emma Matthews. Read by Jodhi May, Matthews’ narration runs throughout the film, much of which details her fears for her son’s life, her anger at the NHS bureaucracy that has repeatedly misdiagnosed or ignored Louis and the battles she and Chris have undertaken on his behalf. But this is only part of the story. The film’s main thread is a trip that Petit and Louis took to Sápmi to explore its unblemished countryside. This is the first such trip in years that Louis has been well enough for and was inspired by Petit’s research into CIA operative James Angleton, who fled to Finland near the end of his life. D IS FOR DISTANCE triangulates Angleton’s Cold War paranoia with the LSD-driven MKUltra experiments and the shifting medical consensus on epilepsy. In addition to Petit and Matthews’ humanistic approach, what links these threads is the recognition that the human brain remains largely uncharted territory. As parents watching their son endure the unimaginable, Petit and Matthews stay with Louis, never looking away. D IS FOR DISTANCE asks the same of its viewer. (Michael Sicinski)

In the presence of Christopher Petit and Emma Matthews.

Christopher Petit (selection): RADIO ON (1979), AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN (1981), FLYING FISH OVER HOLLYWOOD (1981, TV), FLIGHT TO BERLIN (1983), CHINESE BOXES (1984), LONDON ORBITAL (2002), UNREQUITED LOVE (2006), CONTENT (2010)