An artist’s feature debut uses three personal stories, scientific perspective and evocative imagery to probe what remains of the self when the mind fragments
Conscious, written and directed by London-based artist-filmmaker Suki Chan, approaches dementia not as a medical chart but as a doorway into how we experience being. The film opens with tactile close-ups and layered sound that immediately move us away from the explanatory tone of a typical documentary and toward something embodied: perception rendered as texture, memory as flavor.
Rather than tracing decline in straight lines, Chan uses three women’s stories alongside commentary from researchers — including neuroscientist Anil Seth — to ask how identity shifts when perception changes. Testimony and theory sit side by side: intimate recollections are allowed their grain and irregularity, while scientific voices provide context without flattening lived experience into case studies.
Visuals and sound are the film’s principal instruments. Cinematographers David Lee and Catherine Derry favor close shots of hands, objects and skin; long takes accumulate meaning through small gestures, and editing alternates between sudden cuts and meditative stretches to mirror moments of confusion and clarity. Color and light do emotional work too: muted tones often accompany scenes of forgetfulness, while saturated warmth can signal social connection or a flash of recognition. Dominik Scherrer’s score and an attentive sound design amplify ambient details — breaths, the scrape of a chair, distant traffic — treating these everyday noises as portals into present-moment awareness.
Chan borrows techniques from experimental cinema and documentary practice alike. Microscopic footage supplied by Chris Parks, aerial sequences and composited effects evoke internal landscapes rather than anatomical diagrams: foggy frames for days that feel blurred, electrical flares to suggest sudden neural disturbance, road maps at night to imply the breakdown and rerouting of connections. The result feels less like an explanation of dementia and more like a map of how perception itself can rearrange.
The production deliberately resists clinical distance. Editorial choices preserve agency: people are heard in their own cadences, with moments of humor, anger and tenderness intact. Michael Ellis, a narrative editor brought in as the project expanded from short to feature, helped rework structure and tempo after test screenings, tightening transitions and reshaping sequences so the film balances contemplative atmosphere with the emotional arcs of its subjects.
Conscious is also a collaborative project in its financing and circulation. Produced by Aconite Productions and Conscious Productions Studio, it received support from Screen Scotland, BFI/Doc Society and Sundance/Sandbox Films; sales are handled by Aconite. That backing has helped the film find a festival home: it will world premiere at CPH:DOX on March 14 during the festival’s 23rd edition, where programmers have positioned it between documentary portraiture and essay film.
Why this film matters goes beyond its formal inventiveness. By giving sensory detail the same weight as scholarly framing, Chan expands the vocabulary for thinking about brains and selves. Memory emerges not only as what’s lost but as something that can reconfigure social bonds, reveal new freedoms and alter rhythms of daily life. The film treats perception as ethically charged: how we render someone’s interior world has implications for care, dignity and personhood.
Looking forward, Chan is considering projects that continue to probe consciousness — from investigations into nonhuman minds to work on artificial intelligence, and a more personal film rooted in childhood experience with a family takeaway. If Conscious asks what remains when memory thins, its answer is subtle: identity can fracture and re-form, and cinema — attentive to texture and timing — can help us feel those shifts as well as think about them.
Credits at a glance: Suki Chan — writer/director; cinematography — David Lee, Catherine Derry; music — Dominik Scherrer; microscopic imagery — Chris Parks; produced by Aconite Productions and Conscious Productions Studio; financed by Screen Scotland, BFI/Doc Society, Sundance/Sandbox Films; sales — Aconite Productions.