4th Dementia

My favorite kinds of films are the ones that make you go “huh, I’ve never thought of it that way." I was fascinated by the idea that maybe Alzheimer’s disease isn’t just causing memory loss and disorientation, but maybe it’s unlocking something else in the human experience. What if all the Dementia-fueled mix-ups and hallucinations were real, but only people with the disease could see them?

4th Dementia is a wildly unscientific attempt at depicting what it might be like to live with Alzheimer’s – a devastating and widespread disease that we curiously know very little about, even 120 years after it was first diagnosed. We know the symptoms; memory loss, disorientation, confusion, no longer recognizing loved ones; but there’s still debate as to what causes it, and we know even less about what it’s like to experience Alzheimer’s first-hand.

I wanted every moment of this film to feel like we are seeing it through Nellie’s eyes. It’s about experiencing what it might be like to have Alzheimer’s and all of the complicated, confusing feelings that come with it. From funny, to bizarre, to scary, to heartbreaking, to joyous. Not a heart-wrenching drama but a comedy about the silly and absurd things that people also experience even in some of the darkest moments of life.

The creative team behind this film is a sketch comedy troupe, Dinner For One, which I co-founded in college with my closest friends and collaborators. We have been writing, performing and filming sketch comedy together for over a decade, which was clearly a big influence. This film felt like a perfect opportunity to use what we’ve learned from the sketch comedy world to tell a unique narrative story, populated with crazy characters, silly situations and visually distinct “dimensions.”

4th Dementia is also an exploration into the cultural mistreatment of our elderly. We ignore them and stick them in nursing homes, out of sight, out of mind. We discount their thoughts and experiences as “delusions.” I would imagine that nothing is more frustrating than being misunderstood by the people who are supposed to love you most. It is my hope that 4th Dementia can bring some much needed levity and imagination to this serious subject. We invite you to laugh in the face of tragedy and to ask, “what if it’s us who don't understand?”