Here's Johnny had its World Premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. It is a eloquent documentary about British comic artist John Hickleton's intense struggle with Multiple Sclerosis. This could easily be a bleak and dark film, but Hickleton's charm, spirit and grace makes it anything, but dark. The filmmakers have integrated samples of Johhny's work - which often is a quite dark - into the film so that we come to understand him as an artist as well as an individual struggling with a tragic disease. Over a period of six years, the filmmakers have tracked Johnny's struggle with MS and have in the space of just an hour given us a powerful, painful, and humorous portrait of Johnny.
This disease is personal to me, because it has touched my own family. Its cause is unknown and its course of development is unpredictable. Patients suffer horribly as their bodies literally fall apart. There have been too few attempts to portray this disease on film and TV - with one exception being Martin Sheen's Jed Bartlet's character on the West Wing.
Johnny Hickleton decision to share the intimate personal pain of MS with the world is heroic. Right now only people who have had a close friend or relative with the disease understand the pain that it inflicts. More money is needed for research and therapy and hopefully this film will stir efforts to bring about more research.
It was a pleasure to have Johhnny present at the Austin screening. He is a delightful person who is fighting the good fight against what he calls a "demon." After the screening, he and the director also spoke about the issue of euthanasia which is raised in the film. This is very important to MS patients because the disease often destroys them physically without killing them.
This film deserves wider distribution, because the world must know about the millions of Johnnys who are out there struggling with this awful curse of disease. I hope the film is widely used to educate people about MS.
This disease is personal to me, because it has touched my own family. Its cause is unknown and its course of development is unpredictable. Patients suffer horribly as their bodies literally fall apart. There have been too few attempts to portray this disease on film and TV - with one exception being Martin Sheen's Jed Bartlet's character on the West Wing.
Johnny Hickleton decision to share the intimate personal pain of MS with the world is heroic. Right now only people who have had a close friend or relative with the disease understand the pain that it inflicts. More money is needed for research and therapy and hopefully this film will stir efforts to bring about more research.
It was a pleasure to have Johhnny present at the Austin screening. He is a delightful person who is fighting the good fight against what he calls a "demon." After the screening, he and the director also spoke about the issue of euthanasia which is raised in the film. This is very important to MS patients because the disease often destroys them physically without killing them.
This film deserves wider distribution, because the world must know about the millions of Johnnys who are out there struggling with this awful curse of disease. I hope the film is widely used to educate people about MS.
