The Accidental Advocate
People:
Jessica Gerstle (Producer Director)
Claude Gerstle (Correspondent)
Nancy Novack and Brian Kamerzel (Editors)
Ralph Dittman and Jessica Gerstle (Executive Producers)
The Fledgling Fund, Chicken and Egg Pictures, Richard Mell (Co-Executive
Producers)
Grants:
$25,000 in 2008 for production
$25,000 in 2008 for post-production and outreach and audience engagement
$25,000 in 2009 for outreach and audience engagement
Awards:
Impact Film Festival - 2008
About the Project
The Accidental Advocate is a documentary film that expores the intersection of politics, science and health care. When Claude Gerstle, a surgeon and athlete, suffers a tragic bicycle accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, he and his daughter, Jessica, discover the hope in the politicized area of science called stem cells.The Accidental Advocate is a wheelchair odyssey of a father and daughter who track down the thinkers, the politicians, the crusaders and the naysayers in an effort to understand the promise of the science and why a political quagmire is stalling a cure.