Billy Lumby's 'Florid' to Premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival

Billy Lumby's feature debut "Florid" will have its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The British filmmaker, a BAFTA nominee for his short film "Samuel-613," made the film to counter what he calls the "misrepresentation" of schizophrenia on screen.

Cinema — especially horror — has long linked the condition to violent and unpredictable rages, showing people only when something has gone horribly wrong. "Florid" sets out to break that pattern.

The film follows Jamal, a young man who hears voices (Lumby says he prefers this term to "schizophrenia") and is struggling to balance his prescribed medication with his marijuana consumption. Living in supported housing in East London alongside others with mental health issues, Jamal grows increasingly lonely and isolated. Once he throws his pills away, the voices in his head — one relating to past family events — only intensify.

The story does not culminate in the violent depths of the tropes Lumby deliberately sought to avoid. It is still a tough watch, largely because of the aural power of the voices, which become more prominent as the film progresses, dragging Jamal down with them.

Jonathan Jules, best known for Steve McQueen's "Small Axe," carries the film in his first lead role. "It's not easy to act in a mentally unwell state in an authentic, accurate way," Lumby notes.

During filming, Jules wore earpieces on set, with actors in another room speaking into microphones so he could hear the voices live and respond freely. "There were these little moments where his eyes twitched — it just made it feel so real," says Lumby. After principal photography wrapped, months of post-production went into augmenting the voices to create the right tone and weave them into the film's soundscape.

Jamal hears three distinct voices, which complicated the editing. A little girl represents his self-worth and is highly critical of him. The voice of real-life rapper Unknown T hypes him up. "That's his more grandiose side, building up his ego and making him think that big things are going on in his life," says Lumby. Most destructive is the voice of Jamal's stepdad — a negative, paranoid voice that convinces him to doubt the intentions of those around him.

"When he's well, he can ignore these things and it's just like a little anxious thought in the background," says Lumby, who drew heavily on the Hearing Voices Movement. That movement rejects traditional psychiatric notions that such voices are merely hallucinations to be dulled through medication, arguing instead that they can be a valid part of someone's identity and history.

Lumby acknowledges "autobiographical elements" in "Florid," but he went to great lengths for further authenticity. Across years of research into the U.K.'s National Health Service and its mental health system, he visited psychiatric wards across London, shadowed social workers, and met people with mental health experiences, their families and carers. Jules spent time in the NHS, as did co-star Saskia Chana, who plays another resident of the supported housing and a potential love interest.

Many other roles went to non-actors Lumby met during the extensive development process. "We have real psychiatrists, social workers, real people with lived experiences, people with diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar and severe mental health experiences," he says. Jamal's care coordinator is played by Claire Holman, a real NHS care coordinator who, Lumby says, "opened a lot of doors" in the mental health community for him.

Holman and the others joined the project because they were "passionate" about the subject matter and, like Lumby, "haven't seen it represented properly or seen their lives shown before."

"Florid" is produced by Rupert Lloyd, an Oscar nominee for "Theeb," and Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor ("Blue Story," "Boxing Day"). Its main purpose, Lumby says, is "awareness."

"I wanted to draw attention to an area of our world and our modern contemporary society that many people are not aware of," he says, noting that mental health is the "least funded" area of the NHS.

"There's a lot of stigmatization and misrepresentation, and I think the more that we open up and discuss these things, the better," he says. "Not everyone may like my film, but hopefully it causes some kind of discussion and debate around severe mental health. People talk about depression and anxiety, but in the case of severe mental health, I think it's something that's still not fully understood."