In her first documentary feature, Louisville director Alex Kimura takes us on an inspiring tale of Sam, a young woman from Louisville with terminal bone marrow disease who decides to try to find a donor match by going on a road trip around America with her sister and best friend.  This film gives a raw look at life on the road, with the beauty of its freedom and its ugly loneliness, where a young woman must grapple with her mortality and attempt to shake off the label of “patient” to discover who she wants to be in whatever time she has left.

Sam’s crusade to find a hero for herself and for other transplant patients forces her to confront her mortality, uncover her family’s secrets, and get out of the passenger seat of her own life. The film challenges misconceptions about bone marrow donation, cracks open long buried histories, and makes a case for a medical process that could be life-changing.

Connection to Kentucky: In addition to the film subject and director being from Louisville, local musician Ben Sollee contributed a song and Louisville-based Gill Holland served as Executive Producer.  The film was also funded by two Louisville non-profits, Sharing America’s Marrow and National Stem Cell Foundation.