Actor and musician, Kenny Wong, bravely shares his own emotional experience through the short film, DYSTONIA, which premiered at the Toronto Shorts International Film Festival. Read more about focal hand dystonia and how it affected his journey as a creative person below.

Tell us about your short film, DYSTONIA, and how is it based on your own personal experience?

Dystonia is about a young violinist who, while attending university, is diagnosed with Focal Hand Dystonia and is forced to deal with the consequences that result from this incurable condition. The story was originally written as a feature film and we took a number of scenes from that script, reworked it, and made a short version of it. In my second year of university, I was practicing six to eight hours a day for my performance exam when I started feeling some tightness in my left hand. I didn’t think much of it until one day, during a violin lesson, my teacher noticed that my ring and pinky fingers were curled under my instrument. I would restart, trying my best to keep the fingers up… but to no avail. I broke down, knowing something was terribly wrong. And sure enough, the doctors diagnosed me with Focal Hand Dystonia, an incurable condition that I still struggle with to this day.