An Irish documentary called Feats of Modest Valour depicting the lives of three people living with Parkinson’s disease and scientists working to cure it has won the Scientist Award at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York last week.
The Scientist Award is awarded by Science, and its publisher the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to a film that portrays, in an accurate and inventive way, the life of a scientist.
The jury included Nobel prize-winning scientist, Professor Martin Chalfe, and award-winning science columnist for the New York Times, Professor Carl Zimmer.
In ‘Feats of Modest Valour’, three individuals live clockwork existences, dictated by a strict regime of medication to manage the physical reality of living with Parkinson’s disease.
Brian Carney is a farmer from County Mayo whose son had to take over the running of the family farm from a very young age; Milena Lulic is a Croatian World War II survivor who faces her condition head-on with great dignity; and Tom Hickey, the Irish actor, talks about how suffering for his art takes on a whole new meaning with the disease.
Interwoven with these individual stories, the documentary depicts researchers at NUI Galway’s Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CURÁM), led by Dr Eilís Dowd, who are developing a novel therapeutic approach which they hope will revolutionise treatment of the condition.
The film uses animated sequences to delve into the brain of someone with Parkinson’s disease, and see how dying cells can be replaced by stem cells supported by a natural biomaterial “scaffold”.
“This is a film about science and medicine, about scientists and patients, about art and music, but most of all, about hope,” said Dr Dowd. “It was a genuine privilege to work on this project with such talented filmmakers and such inspirational patients.”
The film is co-directed and co-produced by Mia Mullarkey and Alice McDowell of Ishka Films, and is due to be screened on RTE 1 on Sunday November 12th at 10:30 pm. To find out more about the film, see www.featsofmodestvalour.com.
‘Feats of Modest Valour’ was produced through the Science on Screen initiative between CÚRAM, Science Foundation Ireland, and the Galway Film Centre who manage Galway’s UNESCO City of Film designation.
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