Blinding

‘She lives in a house without being seen.’ Ryan is a writer. Twenty years ago, he began to lose his sight. This has given him a very different intimacy with his wife – one much more focused around the sense of touch. Ryan writes mostly about the beauty of observation; the two other characters in this docu-fiction would have preferred not to have seen so much. Lesbian Jackie spent ten years as a police officer in Toronto; as a pilot, daredevil Jamie dropped bombs on Sarajevo, Iraq and Rwanda. Both have been seriously traumatised by their work. 
Canadian experimental filmmaker Steve Sanguedolce started colouring his films by hand fifteen years ago – one way of visually representing emotions. In Blinding, parts of the image literally escape us – the images are scratched and grainy, overexposed or underexposed, or the colouring-in distorts the image. Blinding and overstimulated – like Ryan’s, Jackie’s and Jamie’s state of mind.