As November spotlights diabetic eye disease awareness and its effects on retinal integrity, it also presents an opportunity to broaden awareness of other degenerative retinal conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). For ophthalmologists and optometrists, this intersection highlights both the shared clinical manifestations and the distinct underlying mechanisms that shape diagnosis and management. Likewise, it invites renewed focus on the emerging gene and cell-based therapies that continue to evolve the RP treatment landscape.

Against this backdrop of heightened attention to retinal disease, it is also valuable to consider how patient experiences are portrayed beyond the clinic. The Eye Care Network recently caught up with Tsu Shan Chambers, a practicing optometrist in Australia who has also built a parallel career as a film actor and writer, to discuss “My Eyes,” her latest social advocacy project.^1,2

Note: Transcript edited lightly for clarity and length.

Question: What was the inspiration behind My Eyes, and how did your personal experiences shape the story you wanted to tell?

Chambers: It's been a 5-year journey actually inspired by true events. It came about when I volunteered at the Paralympic Games in Sydney in 2000. I was the personal assistant to the vision-impaired judo athletes by chance. I was optometry student at that time, and I fell in love with one of them. It was so profound [the experience] that 20 years later, I wrote about it and created a movie. We ended up shooting it across Australia and Mexico. It's a heartfelt journey about family more so—the lengths that we [go] for family, for children, whether or not they're biologically yours or not. There's an element of unconditional love.

I considered it like a love story for our eye care industry... subtly [raising] awareness about preventative eye care and inclusion, which is important. In Australia, 75% of vision loss is preventable.³ If we can subtly influence the consumer audience and say, "Hey guys, it's a really great idea to get your eyes tested." The reason for that is because in the film [and] its incredible cast. It started off with Eduardo Ávila Sánchez, who's a real-life judo Paralympic champion. He won gold twice at the Paralympics, and how that came about is because I wanted to have someone with a vision impairment to play that role. That was important for us. We have a lot of supporting organizations supporting this film, and one of them being the International Blind Sports Federation. They introduced me to the judo coaches in Paralympics across the world. Fortunately, Eduardo answered his Instagram message when I [asked], "Do you want to be in a film?"

🎙️ Listen to the full podcast: Cinema as advocacy: The eye health message behind "My Eyes"

Chambers: [The story] is about a mum who's an optometrist who has a daughter who they discover has a vision impairment, which is retinitis pigmentosa. From there, they discover through testing that the husband's not the father. It's the guy she hooked up with ages ago. They have to find him, because potentially if he [could] donate some stem cells, then potentially [he] could save the daughter's vision. It's a bit of a play on the clinical aspect of things. We had one of my ophthalmology consultant friends help and make that work as closely as we can to the authenticity of the condition and what's experimental at the moment. That's an important thing to say [when]something like this goes out in the world. Regardless of where it has been played in the world so far, we've been having great response to it.

What impact do you hope the film will have on promoting advocacy and raising awareness about preventable vision loss and eye health?

Chambers: We've tapped into organizations like the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, Vision 2020, Fred Hollows Foundation, and Australian Society of Ophthalmologists. We've all got the same goal, the same mission, which is trying to raise that awareness that preventative health vision is important. It's a vital organ for us. We want people not to wait until it's too late. Quite a simple message. It does stem from Eduardo in his real life. When he was a young child, he fell over off the swing in the playground. He hit the back of his head, his visual cortex. Kids fall down all the time, right? We don't necessarily think about it. For him, it was such a trauma that he became blind. Unfortunately, it wasn't diagnosed.

Academically, he couldn't study. One of his teachers said to his mother, 'Your child is different, something's wrong, can you go get his eyes tested?' When they did, that's when they discovered his condition. Years later, that's how he got into judo, and it completely changed his life and [he] became this amazing person and this champion.

MORE: Using storytelling to highlight inherited eye disease awareness: Inside the film "My Eyes"

[The message] is simple. If you pick up something, even if it's some astigmatism, let's say, that is undiagnosed, that can make a big difference with a child, as an example, in terms of academically how they perform, how they can see. Maybe they don't have behavioral problems. Maybe it's their vision, and so wanting to have the international community use this movie as a tool, because they can as an educational tool promote that awareness and try to make that difference.

For me, I come from a public health background. Social impact is important, but it's more about spreading that word, trying to unite with this industry, because there's so many great organizations aiming for the same thing, same goal, but doing it separately. What I'm trying to do, and which is great with this film, [is] I'm bringing together all these organizations that work in silos sometimes, and saying, 'Hey, we've got this common goal. This is a great opportunity to spread this message and see if we can make a difference.¹

Given your clinical background, how has it informed your approach to storytelling? More importantly, how do you ensure medical and social accuracy when depicting topics like vision impairment and eye health?

Chambers: It’s important as creators [and] as filmmakers. We have a lot of responsibility to the audience in terms of what we’re saying. Storytelling can be quite profound and can have lots of impacts on people. Beginning even during script stage, for example, we’ve had a lot of consultants. Some of them are vision paired, some of them ophthalmologists. At the very beginning, I had actors table read one of very early drafts [and] we recorded it so that one of my consultants, who is blind, could listen to the to the screenplay and to give us feedback on the script.

One of the themes of the film seems to be the shift from focusing on disability to focusing on ability. Can you talk about how you approached portraying that, particularly through characters like Eduardo?

Chambers: I wanted to get away [from] stereotypes. People with a disability, even if there's vision loss, [can] be amazing. It's focusing on what they can do rather than what they can't. In 'My Eyes,' I believe we do that particularly with Eduardo, because he's a Juno champion. He can do so many things that some of us even can't do even physically. That's what we wanted to portray. With that story, we had so many options with scripts [for] what our ending could be. Given the times, our world is going through a lot, we wanted something that was more uplifting—not that I'm going to reveal what the ending is—but we wanted to focus on ability. That's important.

Note: The film initially premiered in markets including Australia and New Zealand^4,5 and is now widely accessible on Amazon Prime Video. Updates on future screenings can be found by following FanForce.

REFERENCES

1. Chambers TS, Stevenson S. Using storytelling to highlight inherited eye disease awareness: Inside the film "My Eyes". Optometry Times. November 3, 2025. Accessed November 6, 2025. https://www.optometrytimes.com/view/using-storytelling-to-highlight-inherited-eye-disease-inside-the-film-my-eyes-

2. Chambers TS, Stevenson S. Cinema as advocacy: The eye health message behind "My Eyes". Ophthalmology Times. November 6, 2025. Accessed November 6, 2025. https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/view/cinema-as-advocacy-the-eye-health-message-behind-my-eyes-

3. Impact of vision loss in Australia. Vision 2020 Australia. News release. June 23, 2010. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://vision2020australia.org.au/media/2010-06-23/impact-of-vision-loss-in-australia/

4. 'My Eyes' set for Australian launch. Australian Society of Ophthalmologists. News release. April 24, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.asoeye.org/index.cfm?module=news&pagemode=indiv&page_id=2865141

5. Official Trailer MY EYES (2024, Tsu Shan Chambers, Adam Garcia, Eduardo Ávila Sánchez). Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksuDH0ZgOQI