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Thanks to the incredible generosity of our backers we have now surpassed our funding goal!!!
This calls for a celebration.
However, our campaign might be ending soon but the process of getting the film to the mainstream is far from over: every cent above our goal will go towards submitting Defying All Odds to a handful of festivals around the world.
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Festival submissions cost a lot of money which can add up (sometimes up to 5 or 10k) once done with producing all the required materials for a competition.
We believe that our film deserves to be entered in a few key festivals once completed for if selected in any shape or form, it will undeniably raise awareness around the documentary.
THANK YOU!
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Note: Five cents of every dollar raised will go to Dr Terry Wahls’ Research Fund; through your donation, you will be directly involved in furthering the development of the clinical trials on Multiple Sclerosis and by extension, other autoimmune diseases. And for us, it’s yet another way we choose to give back.
What’s this film about?
Hi everyone,
Caroleen here. I’m one of the producers and the director of the feature documentary, We Love Paleo (WLP) released in 2016. I want to take a moment to talk from my heart about my next movie: Defying All Odds (DAO).
Ever since Dr Terry Wahls’ TEDx talk ”Minding Your Mitochondria” went viral in 2011 I have been fascinated by her amazing life story… And what a story it is: plagued by an incurable disease, this incredible woman, herself a medical doctor, found a way to effectively treat her illness and recover from a disease no one thought one could recover from.
How inspiring. The message? If she was able to do it–as sick as she was, anyone can. (More on this below.)
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Dr Terry Wahls, The Wahls Protocol
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What's unique about Defying All Odds?
Defying All Odds is not your middle-of-the-road talking heads documentary. Nope. Live action, animations and flashbacks all come together in a never before seen fashion to recount the story of Dr Terry Wahls.
Behind the inspiration for the look & feel of DAO are a couple award-winning documentaries. Hence, DAO is a cinematic cocktail; you would be hard-pressed to find anything out there that looks remotely like it!
So what’s so unique about it?
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Since we can’t go back in time (who wouldn’t want that), and that recounting the past solely using photos and grainy archival video is a bit blah, we decided to go all in and recreate some of the more defining moments of Dr Terry Wahls’ journey. Here are a couple of preliminary shots with Chiara Gizzi, the talented actress who will play the role of young Terry. (The rest of the flashbacks will be filmed thanks to your generosity!)
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Creative Team
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Caroleen Moise Producer/Director IMDb
Juliane Block Art Director IMDb
Chiara Gizzi Actress/Associate Producer IMDb
Simon Koloadin Cinematographer IMDb
Eric Kuhn, Music Composer IMDb
Nikos Kellis, Motions Graphics Artist IMDb
Consulting Team
Consulting Producer, Jilann Spitzmiller IMDb
Scientific Advisor Dr Ashutosh Mangalam, (PhD. Immunology)
Perks
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Desired Minimum Outcome
Our first film, We Love Paleo has been seen in roughly 300k households. That's roughly a million pair of eyes (with the average home counting 2-4 people).
This wonderful outcome has allowed us to bring so much awareness to the concept of the paleo lifestyle and what constitutes optimal health. In fact, our initial international outlook is what led us to film people from the US, Australia, Germany and the UK. Today, WLP can be watched in French, Spanish, German, Czech and Portuguese and we're currently working on our first Asian language.
Our aim is to replicate this level of success with DAO.
Release date
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Is this film really necessary?
In 1968, the highest life expectancy for humans was 74.1 years. This record could only be found in Sweden. In 2015, it was 83.8 years in Hong Kong. In fact, nowadays, the vast majority of our world populations will reach the age bracket of 77-83 years of age.
(source: World Health Organization, http://www.ourworldindata.org)
Meanwhile, rates of obesity, diabetes, cancers and autoimmune diseases continue to soar.
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(sources: http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail...)
These are only a handful of examples… We are living longer but in a poorer state of health. We must change this appalling reality.
One effective way to do so is to give Dr Terry Wahls’ message of self-empowerment a vehicle, through a feature documentary.
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Stories Well Told Can Have Tremendous Social Impact
The more people assimilate the idea that real lasting change starts with ourselves (not our physicians, teachers, pastors, communities or governments) and that a nutrient-dense diet (not a prescription drug) is the most effective tool we possess to cure illnesses, the fewer lifestyle diseases will continue to ravage our global population.
Defying All Odds is not only about one brave woman’s journey to save her own life and regain health. It’s also the poignant testimony of how, ultimately, the power of healing lies within us. Figuratively and literally speaking.
Second, we wish to raise awareness around the fact that Nature has provided us humans with all we need to be healthy (within ourselves but also in the wild), if we would only start listening to our bodies.
We know the film will provide hope, inspire and empower people to take their health journey into their own hands.
What We Need & What You Get
We’re currently between production and post-production stages. This means that we have the backbone of the film (our interview with Dr Wahls and some footage of her). We have also started animating and editing the film and have a strong sense of how the story will unfold.
However, we still need funds to…
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Why You Should Trust Us With Your Hard-Earned Money
I have made a feature documentary on a similar subject before! You may have heard of We Love Paleo aka Love Paleo. This means that I have the knowledge it takes to take the film beyond the finish line. As a matter of fact, we're nearly there.
We are all industry pros, with several award-winning industry experts, all uniting to tell this incredible human story.
We Love Paleo our first doc–now subtitled in several languages, has proven itself by being offered a distribution deal with a well-known and respected distro house. (www.welovepaleo.com)
We’ve bet on ourselves by commencing filming with private funds in May 2018, in Australia.
However, should we not succeed in hitting our target, we plan to come back with another campaign to raise finishing funds or find investors and/or sponsors interested in the project.
Risks & Challenges
We seriously cannot think of any… The only thing really standing between this important film and us is the financing.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you want to help us even more, please use Indiegogo’s sharing tools to spread the word about our project with your loved ones and everyone in your network.
Oh, and if you like our project, please also LIKE our FB page to show us your support! Facebook.com/Defyingallodds
Thanks again and we look forward to bringing you a completed awesome film.