Brief Explanation

Asako, a SLE patient, suffers from not only the disease’s symptoms but also moon face, a common side effect of medication. Her face was noticeably puffy at the beginning of treatment, and though her face is no longer puffy thanks to decreased dose, she still hides her face with hair, avoids group photos, gets startled at a mention of puffy face and never watches a full moon without remembering her round face. Alone in her suffering, she adjusts dose of medication by herself, making her condition unstable. One day she finally confides in a nurse, who informs the doctor that the fear of moon face causes as much trouble to Asako as the symptoms. Thanking Asako for disclosing her real feelings, the doctor promises to control the treatment with consideration to her wishes. With this newly found hope for future, Asako pushes up her side hair and smiles.

Execution

SLE patients at chronic stage experience emotional turmoil as their disease is not recognizable from appearance, which is no longer different from that of healthy people. Considering this as “a silent battle of SLE patients”, we chose a healthy-looking woman as the main character and highlighted SLE patients’ solitary struggle through scenes of daily life. Depictions of trauma with group photo, a friend’s words and the full moon are based on patients’ voices collected during research. When the heroine finally expresses her feelings, we intentionally avoided showing her face to draw attention to her despair. In the last scene she shows her cheeks and looks to the camera, indicating an improved QOL and encouraging change in target’s behavior. The title “Tomorrow’s moon” reflects our hope for a better tomorrow for patients, while the moon is a metaphor of moon face in changing sizes, symbolizing our intention to always support patients.