Helen Hyland, Fundraising Manager, ME Association.
The ME Association is thrilled to announce that “Winter Hill” – Lee Gray’s evocative film about his sister’s experiences of living with M.E. – is due to receive its premiere at The British Documentary Film Festival on 9th May – in ME Awareness Week – at Leicester Square's Cineworld.
Lee started working on the film in 2017 as a final year project at The Royal College of Art. Completed earlier this year – with help from sound composer and mixer, Joshua Younger and Rebecca Goodeve working on colour grade – Winter Hill has since been accepted for a number of festivals including Bute Street Film Festival, FILMSshort, High Peak independent Film Festival, Watford Film Festival, and Catalyst Film festival.
Lee and his sister SJ have always worked creatively together – from putting on plays as kids to more elaborate fashion shoots in later years.
Lee’s studies took him away from home – to London – but
their collaborations continued despite SJ’s diagnosis with M.E. when she was just 13. Choosing M.E. as the subject of his final year project was a no-brainer for Lee.
Lee accepts that in Winter Hill he had a challenge on his hands – because M.E. is tricky to fully understand, emotionally and physically – but also that he didn’t want to upset his sister or be disrespectful.
They agreed that it would be conceptual and abstract and based on a series of interviews. Together they flew between past and present, and pieced together a hugely emotional documentary of SJ’s journey.
Choosing Winter Hill in Rivington, Lancashire they pay homage to their familial roots, their shared happy place and it serves as a metaphor for the isolation and barrenness that is living with chronic disability.
Lee has kindly set up a Justgiving page to raise funds for ME Association. To learn more, or perhaps to make a donation to show appreciation of his efforts, please click here
The ME Association
Real People. Real Disease. Real M.E.
We are a national charity working hard to make the UK a better place for people whose lives have been devastated by an often-misunderstood neurological disease.
If you would like to support our efforts – particularly during ME Awareness Week – and help ensure we can continue to inform, support, advocate and invest in biomedical research, then please donate today.
Just click the image opposite and visit our JustGiving page for one-off donations, to establish a regular payment or to create your own fundraising event.
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ME Association Registered Charity Number 801279
This is a great interview but the film is impossible to watch. It is so pretentious. The spinning mirror is awful. The shakey shots. The looped backwards/forwards shots. There is too much movement. The video does not fit the interview.