When a driven college student diagnosed as clinically high-risk for schizophrenia begins seeing a dark figure stalking her, she will have to find a way to prove he’s real despite the pity and mistrust of the people closest to her, or risk losing her grasp on reality for good.

Director’s Vision for ‘Lyssa’

Our short film Lyssa was conceived to tackle the harmful stigma around the most taboo and underrepresented mental disorder of them all: schizophrenia. Too often have mental disorders been portrayed with little to no regard for the authentic details of the condition. Too often have we been taught to fear the “abnormal”, to be terrified of mental health patients.

This story is built on months of research. We have consulted with patients, psychiatrists, and clinical researchers alike. We want our audience to see the world through our protagonist’s eyes and feel their fear and isolation.

Lyssa is a social thriller that aims to challenge stigma against people with schizophrenia as well as misinformation about the condition itself. The goal is to allow the audience to internalize the experience of living with schizophrenia, feeling the same paranoia as our protagonist and becoming unable to discern whether what seems to be happening is actually happening.

We had a small group of passionate, talented and hard-working filmmakers and artists who devoted their time and work on this project during Covid. It was a privilege to work with such them through these challenging times.