Unrest

Director Jennifer Brea was a journalist and academic studying for a PhD at Harvard. Months before her wedding, she became progressively ill, losing the ability to even sit in a wheelchair. When told by her doctor it was "all in her head," her response was to start filming from her bed, gradually deploying crews globally to document the world inhabited by millions of patients that medicine forgot. Unrest tells the story of Jen and Omar, newlyweds facing the unexpected, and the four extraordinary M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome) patients Jen meets throughout her journey, in the United States, U.K., and Denmark. Together, they explore how to make a life of meaning when everything changes. The film is a feat of disability filmmaking, made with an international team and using innovative technologies to allow the bedbound, disabled director to "travel the world" and film as if in the room.