You can read about a disease or hear someone talking about it and be engaged and interested. But when you see and hear the people who have the disease talking about it and the impact it has on their lives, that’s when a profound impact occurs. When you look into their eyes and hear them describe, in their own words, how it affects them, you are moved, truly moved, in ways that are hard to describe.

That’s the goal of the Rare Disease Film Festival taking place in San Francisco Saturday November 9 and Sunday November 10. Over two days they’ll be showing 50 films on rare diseases. The film “Rare But Not Alone” highlights conditions such as Batten Disease, Sanfilippo Syndrome and Epidermolysis Bullosa. It shows how families with rare conditions can often feel isolated and alone, but through the internet they can create support groups and a community to help them cope with the pain and challenges that these conditions create.

Daniel DeFabio, the co-founder of the festival, says the idea grew out of his own experiences as a parent.

“I had run a film festival before, it was general interest short independent films. But when my son was diagnosed with Menkes Disease, I made a film about that. After exploring the best festivals and conferences to screen a rare disease film I saw an unmet need.  There was nothing out there like a film festival focused on the rare disease community.  A community of 30 million Americans seemed to deserve its own festival.”

A rare disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 people. In the US they are also called “Orphan diseases” because drug companies were not interested in adopting them to help create cures or new treatments. At CIRM we are committed to funding research into these kinds of condition. We are not in the business of making a profit. We are here to try and save lives. Of the 60 clinical trials we now fund more than a dozen of them target rare conditions.

DeFabio says the festival is designed to be a place for people to come and share their experiences, but he also hopes it has a more practical, tangible result.

“I partnered with Bo Bigelow. His daughter has USP7. We knew we wanted more than just increased awareness. We wanted awareness that could lead to action. We structured the festival to get the right people together and talking about what they learn in the films. You know Debussy’s line on how music is what happens in the space between the notes? We felt advocacy was what happens in the space between the films. We hope after a screening people stay for a while and start conversations in our lobby. Ideally, they’ll make connection to a new researcher, or a researcher might realize a new application for work that has already been done.”

“We say of our festival you may never be more moved at the movies. And we provide the packs to tissues to our audience in case we’re right.”