Focus - Short Film

Aim: Our short film aims to raise awareness and advocate for better representation of focal epilepsy.

We’re making a short film!

As a group of young filmmakers, we believe that we should make films that matter, which led to the creation of Focus — a powerful new short film that explores undiagnosed epilepsy through an artistic and emotional lens. 

Focus follows Ella, a young, foreign model chasing her dream of becoming a photographer. As her life starts to come together, strange sensory distortions begin to unravel her reality. Unaware she’s facing a neurological disorder, she tries to push through — only to be dismissed when she finally asks for help. While the world urges her to 'just focus,' that’s exactly what she’s losing. In a raw, visceral descent into isolation and sensory fragmentation, she collapses in a crowd, convulsing from a seizure no one sees coming.

This short film looks at how undiagnosed and invisible disabilities can isolate and disorient a person when it is ignored. We believe our project can also bring visibility to other invisible disabilities, showing how what may seem insignificant can be incredibly exhausting and time consuming for the person living with a chronic condition or disability. Especially living in a big city like London, it can be easy to forget that there is often something going on beneath the surface for everyone.

From our Director Kira Sarria, a London-based filmmaker and photographer, “There is little to no awareness for the many variations of epilepsy. It has taken me 7 years and an ambulance ride to understand that the strange and scary sensations I’ve been experiencing are a type of seizures called “focal” or “complex partial” seizures. As a filmmaker I am in the unique position to where I can actually attempt to visualise what these are and how it feels to live with them.”

What Your Support Will Help Us Achieve:

To fully capture the experience of focal epilepsy, we’re aspiring to produce a visually striking and emotionally rich film that bridges realism with imagination. Your support will help us bring this vision to life with:

• Equipment
• Set Design and Locations
• Props and Costumes
• Transportation

With your support, let’s bring Focus to life!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 25th August 2025 at 10:00pm