Eyeline Pictures Landing Page

House on Fire is a FEATURE FILM in development based on the book by WILLIAM H. FOEGE.

Coronavirus paralyzed our world.  It’s highly contagious, killing up to 1% of infected people through respiratory distress, blood clotting, and inflammatory illness.  The symptoms are mostly hidden inside the body.  But imagine if the primary symptom were on the outside of our bodies — thousands of hard, angry pustules on the skin.  Imagine if the virus, instead of killing 1%, killed 30% of those infected.  Imagine if one out of every three people were dying in a gruesome and painful way.  And imagine if those that survived were scarred for life with pockmarks on their skin, or even blinded by the virus.

What you’re imagining is smallpox, a scourge that killed more than 500 million people and plagued the human race for more than three thousand years… before it disappeared. 

The story of smallpox eradication is an epic tale that has never been told on film.  It’s a tale of men and women working together all over the world to achieve one goal, the elimination of a terrible scourge.  It’s a story of human suffering, of global collaboration, of emerging technology and know-how set against the backdrops of poverty, over-population, underdevelopment, civil war, nuclear arms, labor strikes, and human fallibility. It’s a story of humankind taking control of its destiny.  And it’s the story of a young physician making a crucial discovery that enables the whole effort to succeed.

Young Bill Foege, in his dream job heading a medical mission in Nigeria, contains an outbreak of smallpox and stumbles upon the secret to defeating the virus. With an international effort afoot to eradicate the disease, he must choose between his life’s work and convincing a legion of entrenched public health experts to change the way they’re battling the disease, or risk losing the fight and the lives of millions more.

Now more than ever, audiences will find this epic story a gripping real-life drama and discover hope in its portrayal of what we can achieve when our common goals outweigh our differences.

House on Fire is a 2022 Page Turner Screenplay Awards Finalist,
a 2022 Austin Film Festival Script Competition Second Rounder,
and a 2023 Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition Semifinalist.