How Long Is “Fade”?

Director/screenwriter Anthony Stagliano uses a rare genetic disorder that refuses to let the body shut down as a jumping off point to explore such issues as identity and faithfulness in a world where dreams and reality are indistinguishable. Arthur Dichter (David Connolly) is a devoted husband suffering from a rare genetic disorder known as fatal familial insomnia. A disorder that typically doesn't manifest itself until adulthood, fatal familial insomnia causes the afflicted to suffer insomnia, intense phobias, panic attacks, hallucinations, dementia, and ultimately death. As Arthur slips ever deeper into the grips of fatal familial insomnia, he wanders the city streets in a sleepless bid to keep his body moving. After losing the ability to communicate, Arthur begins to self-mutilate and record his thoughts in a diary that he will not even share with his long-suffering wife, Anna (Sarah Lassez). His doctor begins to speculate that Arthur may be suicidal, but Anna knows that her husband is simply locked in a strange new reality from which the only escape is death. As despair, loneliness, and alienation take hold, Anna refuses to allow her husband to slip away without one last valiant fight.