Coeliac Disease

I made this short documentary for the a 2nd year Module Media Arts. I was looking for a good brief documentary about celiac disease a while and haven’t been able to find one. Therefore I decided to make one by myself.

I wanted it to be informative brief and storytelling. It was quite challenging to find people, not because they aren’t much of celiacs who like to discuss their problems. As well as that not every request was taken seriously enough because of my low budget.

I made the entire animation, texturing and 3D modelling myself in a 3D Program. It was really interesting to work with the bowels anatomy. I used several 2D pictures as reference for the 3D intestine modelling.

I have been diagnosed with celiac disease when I was eleven years old. I was physically underdeveloped, malnourished and anaemic in various things. After I went on a gluten free diet my body recovered and it allowed me to develop normally. If I look back, it seems like it has always been a part of my life and I can hardly remember eating gluten (bread, etc). It was never a real disease for me, just something I had to life with.

Passing my early twenties I spent more time thinking about my condition and I started to question my circumstances. I was wondering how much it actually affects me psychologically and how much it affects others.

I felt like investigating about this disease and myself by making a documentary and meet other people to speak about it. I also wanted to raise awareness, which makes also our (people with celiac disease) life easier.


The main points I wanted to cover in my documentary were following:

-       How does it work?
-       What is gluten?
-       How does it affect people’s life?