"In a seaside town, a teenage boy sees a series of coincidences, that lead him to the truth..."

Whitebait is a semi-autobiographical film about delusion of reference and it's relation to bipolar disorder, as well as other mental illnesses.
The film itself is based on my experiences when I was seventeen, going through the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder without any diagnosis or notion of what was even happening to me. The initial inspiriation behind the project, was to make a film that if I had seen at the time, I might have recognised the symptoms and sought diagnosis sooner. According to Bipolar-UK, on average there's a 9.5 year delay between seeing a doctor about a symptom and getting an accurate diagnosis. If this film, shortens that time for at least one teenage boy out there going through what I went through, then it was all worth it.

There are many symptoms of Bipolar. These are often so specific and individual from person to person, hence the time it takes to get a diagnosis. To do justice to all these symptoms in one short or even feature film, would be a near impossible task. I decided to focus mostly on my own bipolarity and it's relationship to 'Delusions of Reference'. This is the belief that occurences in the external world have a special significance for the person witnessing them. It can be a symptom of Bipolar Disorder, specifically manifesting in moments of hypomania or mania.

There are two reasons I went down this path. Firstly, a delusion of reference is so inherently visual it allows the audience to see the world through Whitebait's eyes and experience the same small pieces of bait that would build him to a hypomanic episode at the end of the film. And secondly, as the director this allowed me to even play my own acting role in the film and that is Whitebait's eyes.  Every single frame and location used in the film, played it's own part in my life and story.

I discuss more about the film in the clip below...