This is not a film about Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not about its diagnosis, symptoms or treatment. It’s about Anna, a passionate humanitarian, devoted wife, mother and grandmother who developed the illness. Directed by Eric Latek, Anna’s godson, and written and narrated by her daughter, Diane Williams, it’s a project deeply close to their hearts. The film is a moving tribute, revealing an inspiring glimpse into Anna’s past and an insightful one into her present.

The short documentary tells Anna’s story; the woman she was before and after succumbing to dementia. Old photographs paint a compelling picture of a smart and happy woman, a stark  contrast to recently shot footage of her in the later stages of the debilitating illness. The film is appropriately fuzzy with Anna going in and out of focus, just as her awareness surfaces intermittently.

When her cognitive ability began to severely deteriorate, Latek took to his camera in an attempt to capture what was left of his godmother’s spirit. “I did not want to dilute the disease by interviews or perspectives outside of what you see from Anna. The film had to be seen through her eyes only” – Latek explains. This loose, observational approach is the reason for the short’s candid quality, and is ultimately what makes it so achingly human.

At times the film falls into overly sentimental territory, with melancholy music and a predictable script, a difficult balance given the close relationship of the filmmakers with their subject. The most stirring moments in the film are in fact those, stripped away from any editorial additives, with no music or narration. The scenes where the focus is solely on Anna and her interactions with her doll, her horse, her mother’s photograph. These are the real, heart-breaking instances, where we see a tenderness and love still very much alive inside Anna’s heart even when her conscious self has almost entirely disappeared. What Eric Latek has managed to capture is not just the effects of one of the cruelest neurodegenerative diseases, it’s the very essence of his godmother.  

By the time the film was finished, Anna was catatonic and living in a nursing home. Her family took her to a screening at the local cinema, the film’s first festival of many, where she sat in the front row, with a flower in her hand. When the scene of her mother’s photograph appeared, she suddenly came back to life. “She was awake. She was aware of her film…her story. She barely blinked. Every time her mother came onto the screen Anna would cry out for her mother. The entire theater was in tears” – the director recounts.

Anna is not an easy film to watch, but it’s an important one. It addresses a gut-wrenching  subject with calm, compassionate sensitivity, and the message to take away is ultimately a positive one. For the past 15 years, Eric Latek has been working on a feature documentary called Tiger, due to be released later this year.