The Sacred Disease
Reeling from the death of her brother and oppressed by the medication meant to cure her, a small town epileptic ditches her pills and follows a mysterious woman into the deep woods of Tennessee. On the outskirts of her town, Angie endures a nightmarish limbo, finally breaking through to the sublime and ecstatic moment that gives this disease its sacred name.
2016 • Producer
Awards
NEW RENAISSANCE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL • Official Selection • Amsterdam • March 2018
Best International Short Film
Best Actress (Kyla Ledes)
11th THESS INT'L SHORT FILM FESTIVAL • Official Selection • Thessaloniki, Greece • September 2017
Cinematic Achievement Award
Selected Screenings
40th CLERMONT-FERRAND INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, France) FEBRUARY 2018
54th VIENNALE – VIENNA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (European Premiere, Vienna, Austria) OCTOBER 2016
TABAKALERA, International Contemporary Culture Centre of San Sebastián / MARCH 2018
8TH CAPITAL CITY FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Lansing, MI) APRIL 2018
48th NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL (Southeastern Premiere, Nashville, TN, USA) APRIL 2017
28th NEW ORLEANS FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, New Orleans) OCTOBER 2017
11th BUFFALO INT'L FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Buffalo, NY, USA) OCTOBER 2017
ASWAN INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Egypt) FEBRUARY 2018
1st CUMP FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Nairobi, Kenya) JUNE 2017
FOUR SEASONS FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, London, United Kingdom) FEBRUARY 2018
2nd FICIT - FESTIVAL DE CINE INDEPENDENT DE TRUJILLO (Official Selection, Peru) SEPTEMBER 2017
Director’s Statement
‘The Sacred Disease’ is about the thin line between illness and cure, between madness and the mundane, between this world and a hidden one. It is very much about yearning for the unknown, about “disorder” as a means to veiled knowledge or experience.
The film is an attempt to recreate the feeling of these visceral, otherworldly seizures, which I experienced in my early 20s. Though classified as a form of epilepsy, these sudden alterations in consciousness felt like a glimpse of something beyond language, inexplicable and transcendent.
I’m interested in the limits of human knowledge, chasing a horizon that will never stop receding. This is a story about those who take comfort in the chaos and mystery of the unknown. They do not explain away the questions that send them searching.
Writer/Director/Editor/Sound Designer - Erica Scoggins
Cinematographer - Albrecht Von Grünhagen
Producers - Dakin Cranwell, Skye Skii, Ian Flannery, Sinah Ober
Starring Kyla Ledes, Abigail Eiland, Derek McLenithan, Susannah Devereux, Rebecca Lines
