Over the last two decades, many cannabis advocacy films have set out to shine a light on the struggles of patients, their families and the difficulties they face. Through the medium of cinema, numerous auteurs have produced hard-hitting works on the injustices and challenges to access cannabis and to have the plant seen as a legitimate lifesaving medicine.
D Is For Distance tackles a familiar tale – the battle of two parents to treat their adolescent son’s rare and memory-erasing epilepsy with cannabis – but breaks away from the traditional documentary style. At the heart of the film sits Louis Petit and his parents, filmmakers Christopher Petit and Emma Matthews. A mixture of home video, archival clips, Louis’ art and contemporary footage of a trip to the Arctic Circle creates a surreal montage that tells a powerful story in a new and intriguing way.
The film portrays a physical journey, taken by Louis and his father, but also recalls the journey travelled by the family. The juxtaposition of vintage animation against shots of a young, unresponsive Louis unfolds alongside third-person narration from actor Jodhi May that drifts between poetic and observational. With the story of Louis and his family’s fight to find a treatment, the film weaves in stories of CIA spymaster James Angleton, the MK Ultra experiments, author William Burroughs and commentary on AI.
The film never explicitly connects these threads; combined with the narration style and mixed footage, D Is For Distance sometimes feels like a collage. But a powerful story lives within the sometimes disparate threads. A family wrestles with a rare form of epilepsy, “seizures like a malignant choreography of demons”, and rages against a medical system that, in the narrator’s words, runs like a “lethal addiction business.”
For some, the most powerful message might get lost amid the experimental style. Louis, the protagonist, is now 22 and has become an artist thanks to a move abroad for cannabis treatment, and his work appears throughout the film. In his paintings, he captures the hallucinations and mental liminal spaces he experiences during his seizures. The film itself alludes to Louis’ experience: fragmented memories, unanswered questions and a long journey to places unknown in the search for answers.
The most poignant moments appear when Louis’ parents become desperate, lost in a world of medical “hubris and bureaucracy”. It’s hard not to feel the weight when you hear a mother recall being told to grieve the child he once was while watching footage of a bright, curious young boy. This isn’t as hard-hitting as some other cannabis advocacy films; sometimes, it feels as if Louis is missing from the story, but at its core, it remains a powerful and intriguing work. Its release in cinemas and on the BFI Player will raise awareness amongst an audience that may know little about the power of this medicine, and the struggle countless families have to endure.
D Is For Distance will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 3rd April 2026 and will be available on the BFI Player from 11th May 2026.
