The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Original title: Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

“Let your imagination set you free.”

Directed by Julian Schnabel

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.