Notes on Blindness (2016)

Directed by

James Spinney, Pete Middleton

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 30m

Rated

18

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 74 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

British writer John Hull loses his sight completely and uses audio recordings to process his new reality. The film weaves his own words with reenactments to show his struggle to remember faces and navigate a world built for sight.

intimatereflectivecontemplativequietsensorypoignantearnestsubjective

What happens

Notes on Blindness is a 2016 British documentary film directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney. The film profiles writer and theologian John M. Hull, who became totally blind, just days before the birth of his first son, after decades of steadily deteriorating vision. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, Hull began documenting his experiences on audio cassette and wrote his autobiography Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness in 1990. He discusses difficulties such as remembering his families faces, and being unable to find audio versions of the academic books he wants to read, and thus having to ask friends and family to record them for him. The film is based upon this work, and his taped diaries and letters. The directors previously created a 2014 Emmy winning short film on the same subject, which this film builds upon. The film won the British Independent Film Award for Best Documentary and received nominations for Best Director, Breakthrough Producer, Best Achievement in Craft (Joakim Sundström for sound) and the Douglas Hickox Award. At the 70th British Academy Film Awards, the film was nominated for Best British Film, Best Documentary and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. It was pitched at Sheffield Doc/Fest's 2012 MeetMarket. Dan Renton Skinner and Simone Kirby depict John Hull and Marilyn Hull respectively in the film. "Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness", an immersive VR experience, released alongside the film, won a XR Peabody Award in 2021. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• HyperNormalisation (2016)
• A Man Returned (2016)
• B Is for Book (2016)
• Our London Lives (2016)
• Islam's Non-Believers (2016)
• Stardust (2016)
• The Boy Who Sees Upside Down (2016)
• Flashy Funerals (2016)