FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival announces selected films.

Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival is pleased to announce some early selections of films to screen at the event in San Francisco on November 9 and 10, 2019. The festival is the largest showcase of films addressing rare diseases.

Among the films are “One in A Million” from Academy Award® winning filmmaker Ross Kaufman (“Born into Brothels”). Kaufman co-directed with Emmy nominee Jeremiah Zagar (“Captivated: The Trails of Pamela Smart”). Their short film beautifully addresses Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome.

“Our Friend Jon” is a feature length documentary about a group of young filmmakers, each with a disability, who came together to film the horror movie script left behind when their friend Jon Hernandez died of a rare disease. It is directed by Edward Payson and the cast includes Maria Olsen (“Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief”).

Another Academy Award® winning filmmaker, Cynthia Wade, directs “Beyond Blue”, a short documentary film capturing the challenges of a diagnosis with polycythemia vera (PV), a rare, chronic blood cancer.

In the film “Deep Blue Breath” several well known Hollywood actors come together to make a film envisioned by a boy with VADER syndrome. Sean Astin (“Lord of the Rings”), Natasha Gregson Wagner (“High Fidelity”) and Ernie Hudson (“Ghostbusters”) are directed by Patricia Cardoso (“Real Women Have Curves”) in this touching story that makes leaps into animation and special effects as a sick boy imagines his battle with his disorder.

30 million people in America face rare disease but worldwide that numbers is 350 million. The films in the festival take us around the world for stories from Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Israel, Romania, Bosnia, England, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and Argentina.

Over forty disease topics will be addressed by the selected films including: Menkes Disease, USP7, Batten, Sanfilippo, EB, PACS1 Syndrome, SMA, NGLY1, Hunter Syndrome and Angelman Syndrome.

The festival is grateful for support from some of the leading organizations in rare advocacy -- NORD, Global Genes, Beyond the Diagnosis and Check Rare – as well as corporate sponsors including Premier Research, Sanofi Genzyme, Horizon, Takeda, Vertex, Ovid Therapeutics, Openly Rare Podcast, BioMarin, and Ultragenyx.

A list of our early selections can be found here: https://www.rarediseasefilmfestival.com/selection2019
And a gallery of some of our films' posters is here: https://www.rarediseasefilmfestival.com/work
Many of these films are featured in the new trailer for the festival which can be seen here:

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