Ahead of the word premiere of his debut feature Lucid at the Edinburgh Film Festival on June 23, Adam Morse publicly revealed that he was visually impaired – a fact that he had also initially concealed from the film’s lead actor, Billy Zane (Titanic, Back to the Future). Lucid is a psychological thriller centred on a therapist (Zane) who advises a shy patient (Laurie Calver) to experiment with a little-known dream therapy to win over a woman (Felicity Gilbert). The movie also stars Sadie Frost.

After his eyesight suddenly deteriorated in 2009, Morse was diagnosed with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy, a neurodegenerative disorder, he told The Guardian in an interview published on June 16. He now only has peripheral vision.

Morse told Variety that he informed Zane and some of his crew about his condition after production on the film began. “Billy didn’t know, and I only told him two days after we started filming. He didn’t believe me,” Morse said. The director also did not tell at least one financier of his visual impairment. “I didn’t want [the investors] to find out and then pull the plug on us,” he said. “I had that anxiety of being found out every time I went to a meeting with one of them. I would bump into something or they would point to something across the room or on the screen of their phone and I would have to fake it – pretend that I knew what they were looking at...None of them were any the wiser about my condition thankfully.”

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Lucid (2018).

Describing his condition, Morse told The Guardian, “I started noticing, in the centre of my vision, there were some dots. Over that spring-summer of 2009, the dots in the middle of my vision began to get bigger and multiplied. Imagine microscopic dots and they’re flashing. I can see them right now.”

Morse cannot read text and relies on screen-reader software. He said that his filmmaking was partially enabled by cinematographer Michel Dierickx. “We have this great working relationship,” Morse told The Guardian. “But when it comes to framing a shot, I’m actually able to do that myself...I have enough peripheral vision to get around, but also to appreciate an image on screen.”

Morse added that he hopes his film will inspire people to make their dreams real. “I’m not just talking about disabled people. I want everyone to believe in themselves and to realise that almost anything is possible,” he said.

Morse previously made a short film, The Window (2013). He is now about to wrap up the script of a dark comedy titled China Blue, which will go into production next year, he told The Guardian.

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The Window (2013).