The Low-Phe Life is an animated-documentary-comedy series about living with PKU—a rare metabolic disorder.  PKU or phenylketonuria inhibits a person’s ability to break down protein. People with PKU, like Kurt Sensenbrenner the series’ director, must adhere to a strict low protein diet of fruits and vegetables, and drink a supplemental formula multiple times a day for their entire life to avoid serious neurological and physical side effects. For reference a non-PKU person consumes about 60 grams of protein per day, Kurt can only have seven.  Having to maintain such a tight regimen means one little mishap and things can go awry quickly! This series focuses on the times in life when things don’t go according to plan, it embraces the humor that can be found in stressful situations, and sheds light on what it’s like to live with a rare disorder.

May is PKU Awareness Month - For more information please visit the National PKU Alliance

Kurt is a documentary director and producer who happens to have PKU. He started as a freelance camera operator working on various fiction and nonfiction projects for various clients including Comedy Central, Google, NBC, Oxygen, and the New York Times. After directing and producing his first feature documentary "From Mass to the Mountain"—a story of one man's crusade to protect rainforests and freshwater sheds in neglected Eastern Panama—Kurt turned his focus to documentary full-time. His documentary work can now be seen in film festivals worldwide, on Amazon Prime, and PBS. Kurt has a Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Studies and Production from Hofstra University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.