I Remember Me

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history

I Remember Me - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a 2000 documentary written, directed, and narrated by Kim Snyder about ME/CFS, featuring the 1984 Incline Village chronic fatigue syndrome outbreak and other similar outbreaks. Motivated to find out more about the illness that struck her in the mid-1990's, Snyder interviews patients, physicians, and researchers around the U.S.[1][2]

Director and producer[edit | edit source]

Kim Snyder, who developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the 1990s.

Cast[edit | edit source]

People with ME/CFS[edit | edit source]

Medical professionals[edit | edit source]

Others[edit | edit source]

Awards[edit | edit source]

  • Winner, Best Documentary Starz Peoples’ Choice Award, 2000, Denver Film Festival
  • Honorable Mention, Golden Starfish Documentary Award, 2000, Hamptons Film Festival
  • First Runner Up, Audience Award Best Feature, 2001, Sarasota Film Festival

Reviews[edit | edit source]

  • 2001, Roger Ebert reviews I Remember Me

    Excerpt: "I now believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was one of many who somehow absorbed the notion that it was an imaginary illness. I am ashamed of myself...
    Snyder begins in Lake Tahoe, where the disease struck hundreds of people. She talks to Dr. Daniel L. Peterson, who first started treating CFS patients there in 1984, has had seven who committed suicide because of the disease, and has no doubt it is real. She also talks to a spokesperson for the nearby Incline Village Visitors' Bureau, who says CFS is promoted by "quack doctors and mostly overweight women." This person succeeds in becoming the living embodiment of the real estate brokers in "Jaws," who don't want anyone to believe there's a shark.
    Yes, Dr. Petersen sighs, investigators from the CDC in Atlanta looked into the Lake Tahoe outbreak: "They came out here and skied and looked at a few charts." The conclusion was that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was psychosomatic, or hysterical, or misdiagnosed. We are reminded that until the 1950s, multiple sclerosis was also considered a hysterical condition."[3]

  • 2002, Maryann Spurgin Reviews I Remember

    Excerpt: "I got a sense that Snyder had failed to do her homework before she made the film...As patients continue to suffer abuse, misdiagnoses, psychopathologizing, lack of medical care, and iatrogenic worsening of their condition, the real story still waits to be told."[4]

  • 2003, Leonard Jason Reviews I Remember Me

    Excerpt: "In the course of the four year production, Kim had called me a number of times to get my reactions and seek my advice on her film. During those conversations, I had urged her to consider the politics of this disease and to make the audience care about the central figures. I wonder what more could have been done to make the message accessible to the public...There are so many other stories that might have captured audiences' sympathies. I know of children who are being taken away from their parents because they are being charged with child abuse due to their lack of ability of going to school. Exposing such abuses would have been riveting. I know of many families that have been broken apart due to the spouse's inability to deal with the illness, and showing these types of effects might have generated more compassion for those affected. Thousands of individuals with CFS have lost their jobs, lost their homes and some have even become homeless---and had such stories been portrayed, particularly if the premorbid functioning had been presented in a way to build audience identification, more interest among potential viewers might have been actualized."[5]

See also[edit | edit source]

Reference[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293270/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
  2. 2.0 2.1 "I Remember Me". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  3. Ebert, Roger. "I Remember Me movie review & film summary (2001)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  4. Spurgin, Maryann (2002). "A Review of Kim Snyder's New Film I Remember Me: Perpetuating the Myth". M.E. Society of America. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  5. Jason, Leonard (2002). "Leonard Jason Reviews "I Remember Me"". M.E. Society of America. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2021.