Thurs. May 14: The Accidental Advocate

The Salem Progressive Film Series offering for May is an especially good one:

May 14 , 2009, 7 PM, at the Grand Theatre (191 High St NE).

When Claude Gerstle, a surgeon and athlete, suffers a tragic bicycle accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, he and his daughter, Jessica, discover hope in the politicized area of science called stem cells. "The Accidental Advocate" is a wheelchair odyssey of a father and daughter who track down the thinkers, the politicians, the crusaders and the naysayers in an effort to understand the potential of the science and why a political quagmire is stalling a cure. The film sorts the hope from the hype, the ideas from the ideology. The promise of stem cell research has united diverse patients and families — rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, religious and secular, a group of millions of Americans — creating a very vocal national movement to reverse limits on the federal funding of the research.

This is a film about science. This is a film about politics. This film is about ethics. But, finally, this is a film about a family. It tells the intricate, delicate, personal story of how one family deals with the life-changing impact of this kind of injury.