Project of the Day: What Doesn’t Kill You

Here’s your daily dose of an indie film in progress — at the end of the week, you’ll have the chance to vote for your favorite.

In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments.

What Doesn’t Kill You

Tweetable Logline: After rare diagnosis, Lily’s attempts to flee from war torn Israel are thwarted when airport closes and her zany cousin forces her to party.

Elevator Pitch: Lily receives a rare Guillain Barré diagnosis on summer vacation while visiting her cousin Yuval in Israel. The 2014 war with Hamas is at its peak and Lily’s desperate attempt to return home to the USA is stymied when the airport closes on the day of her return flight, leaving her trapped in her body and in a foreign country during wartime. Her cousin swoops in and attempts to “cure her” by coercing her into attending a beach party where she is forced to face new and old demons: a hated tagalong, Ofir, and an ex-lover of mythological proportion, Itai.

Production Team:

Darya Zhuk – Director
Hannah Janal – Producer / Co-Writer
Ziv Berkovich – Cinematographer
Eytan Fox – Executive Producer

About the film: About 3 years ago, I was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS), a debilitating autoimmune illness that renders some paralyzed. As filmmakers, we pluck stories from our life experience, and from my first days in the Intensive Care Unit at NYU Hospital I began to conceive of ways to tell this one in particular. “What Doesn’t Kill You” serves as my graduate thesis film at Columbia University.

Current Status: Crowdfunding until Dec. 18, Post-production + Feature Film Development.

For more information and to support this project: Indiegogo Page

If you have an in-the-works project and you’d like to be profiled in an upcoming IW Project of the Day column, submit yourself by filling out this form!