The road to Tin Soldiers
EMMARENTIA – South African Film giant Odette Schwegler details the journey to her new feature film.
South African feature film, Tin Soldiers, has travelled internationally with the aim to find people who live with the rare muscle disease fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva or FOP. Directed by Emmarentia-based director Odette Schwegler, the film premiered on 5 October at Hyde Park Nu Metro, and has aimed to find more people who live with the rare disease.
The Tin Soldiers documentary began when Schwegler travelled to the United States in 2010 for a documentary which revolved around rare medical conditions while employed as a senior researcher at Carte Blanche.
“That was when I met and interviewed Amanda Cali and her adult son, Ian, who was diagnosed with FOP when he was five. I was heavily pregnant at the time and the story was one of those that just grabbed me by the heart. Amanda and I stayed in touch after that and in August last year she contacted me because there was – the first ever – international meeting of FOP families from South Africa and Brazil. Amanda thought we should try to find a way to film it. And so began the journey.”
The worldwide premiere was attended by:
- US-based orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Kaplan – cited by Newsweek as ‘one of the people who make America great’
- American mother, Amanda Cali who reached out to a South African film-maker to tell her child’s story in an effort to raise awareness globally
- Dr Patricia Desai, a FOP clinician who has been instrumental in FOP patient identification in Brazil
- South Africa’s Dr Christiaan Scott – head of pPaediatric rheumatology at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and UCT, with a special interest in FOP
- Heavily awarded South African director/producer, Odette Schwegler who has achieved the impossible in only a year to produce this film, funded by ordinary people
- South Africa’s longest surviving FOP hero and disability activist – Thozamile Mciki
- Kelly du Plessis – Head of Rare Diseases SA who is partnering to help the search for the undiagnosed
Follow the journey of the FOP Tin Soldiers at @fop_tin on Twitter and Tin Soldiers on Facebook.
Related Article:
