The Human Trial
An intimate journey with the patients and scientists who put themselves on the line to find a cure for type 1 diabetes. Discussion follows.
22/23 Hop Film
In 2011, Lisa Hepner and her husband Guy Mossman heard about a radical stem cell treatment for diabetes, a disease that shockingly kills more than five million people each year. Driven by a desire to cure Lisa of her own type 1 diabetes (T1D), the filmmakers were given unprecedented, real-time access to a clinical trial—only the sixth-ever embryonic stem cell trial in the world. Interweaving the journeys of both the patients undergoing the trial and the researchers keeping it going, the filmmakers reveal the emotional and physical rollercoaster of trying to cure a disease.
Director's Statement:
The swift rollout of a vaccine for Covid-19 showed us that we are capable of innovating in ways we didn't think possible. It showed us how critical clinical trials are to support breakthrough research. When Guy and I started making The Human Trial, we had no idea that our film would mirror the headlines of a breakthrough vaccine 10 years later. Unwittingly, our first-person narrative captured the zeitgeist of how cure research should be conducted.
D: Lisa Hepner and Guy Mossman, US, 2022, 1h31m
Special thanks to Features Capital and Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital
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