Electric Malady

Artist and filmmaker Marie Lidén invites audiences into the isolated world of William, a young man who’s spent a decade reluctantly retreating from modern life. A one-time master’s student and aspiring musician, his adverse reaction to the electrical radiation from our interconnected digital age has led him to a remote cabin in the Swedish wilderness where he’s cut himself off from most forms of technology. But how do you get off the grid when the grid is now everywhere? Hidden in a foil-encased bedroom, beneath layers of copper-lined fabric, William speaks openly to Lidén about suffering from the condition known as electrosensitivity. Shot partly with a hand-cranked Bolex camera, what emerges is a lyrical and empathetic portrait of loneliness and isolation – and a loving family’s efforts to save their son’s life.—Conic