Breathing

At the age of 33, new father Neil Platt finds out he will die from Motor Neuron Disease. He is left with the question: how can he make the last months of life as meaningful as possible?  Paralysed from the neck down, Neil uses his remaining energy to communicate before his speech goes. Through a voice recognition system, he dictates a witty, widely read blog. This provides the narrative for the film, bringing us into the limbo land between life and death. Intimate footage with his wife, child and friends are interspersed with his uncompromising words.

He was determined to save his baby son from inheriting the illness which had also killed his father and grandfather. This fuelled his urge to communicate. Motor Neurone Disease is one of the last incurable diseases. Dizzying leaps in genetic science provide some hope, but there is still a lot to be done to find a cure.
 Breathing intertwines different notions of time: the approaching death of a 34-year-old man, the discovery of the world of his eighteen-month-old son and the drive to decode the genetic causes of MND.

By entering the vivid world of Neil's final months, our senses are awakened to the present moment.