BloodBanker is seeking and supporting creative projects that need funding to get into production and be introduced into a larger market. With the help of Kickstarter.com, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects, BloodBanker gets to help promising and potentially great projects from the world’s brilliant minds through funding and pledges. Check out other projects we’ve funded here.
One of the projects that BloodBanker has funded is “Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory”, a documentary project by Michael Rossato-Bennett about how personalized music can awaken and restore deeply locked memories in patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Rossato-Bennett and his team wants to take Alive Inside around the globe to encourage widespread adoption of personalized music programs in nursing homes that could help both the patients and caregivers.
What is Alive Inside?
As a documentary film, “Alive Inside” seeks to spread word that there is hope for those who are struck with despondent diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. This follows the story of Dan Cohen, a small town social worker who discovered that music has a power to bring back memories of patients who suffer from memory loss. He decided to bring iPods to a nursing home and was caught in total surprise when many patients seemed to have awaken when they listened to music from their past. Overwhelmed with excitement, Dan asks Dr. Oliver Sacks, a renowned neurologist, to help him investigate the mysterious ways of how music functions inside our brains and in our lives.
Why Support the Project?
In the United States alone, there are 5 million people who have Alzheimer’s and dementia. “Alive Inside” wants to spread good news that it’s not yet the end of the world for patients suffering from these diseases. Rossato-Bennett and his team hopes that the film will inspire and educate people who are burdened by Alzheimer’s and dementia and open possibilities of creating a new kind of low cost treatment that can also help caregivers and doctors across the world. Though “Alive Inside” follows the journey of Dan Cohen, it also lets us take a peek of the heart-gripping stories of some elderly patients inside the nursing homes. It takes us inside the halls of nursing home and tells us how it feels to work and care for the elderly, at the same time, we witness the pure reactions of happiness of the patients as they exhibit pure joy of what it truly feels to be alive inside.
A video clip of Alive Inside was uploaded on YouTube and has impressively reached 6.4 million hits in just over four days. In the video, we meet a 94 year-old dementia patient named Henry, who is unable to recognize even her daughters. But after he listened to music from his past, it was as if he was awakened and was instantly brought back to life. The clip became viral and has apparently touched so many hearts and lives. They received emails and calls from people all over the world and wanted to see the full version of “Alive Inside”.
What will They Use the Money for?
Alive Inside is definitely a touching and moving documentary film that can change so many lives. The problem is, it is not finished yet. The film is almost done but they still need money to help them have it released for a big theatrical release. Among the things that they need to do are: complete the color correction, audio mixing, graphic integration, acquire music rights and create a digital cinema package. The team is also developing an official “Alive Inside” App that will help anyone, regardless of condition, find the music that has a huge impact to them in their lives.
With your financial support, the team will bring “Alive Inside” to theaters this fall. But if you do not have money to spare, you can still help the them by sharing their Kickstarter page or video on Facebook, Twitter and spread the word to your family and friends.
Rossato-Bennett emphasized that if they don’t meet their funding goal in Kickstarter, they don’t get to keep any of the money they’ve raised. It’s all or nothing here. So we are all encouraged to tell everyone about this amazing documentary film just so the project won’t be discarded. “Alive Inside” is not just another documentary film; it has elements of emotions and life that will surely take you to a deeper level of love and compassion for the elderly and afflicted.