Filmmaker Bill Haney Wins Gold Medal From World's Leading Journal Of Scientific Research For Jim Allison: Breakthrough Français
Special December issue of Science Magazine highlights Haney as Winner of its Gold Prize for In-Depth Reporting for his Documentary, "Breakthrough."
BOSTON, Dec. 22, 2020 /CNW/ -- Science Magazine has announced the 2020 winners of its AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards, including the Gold Prize for In-Depth Reporting for Director Bill Haney's award-winning documentary, Jim Allison: Breakthrough.
"I am honored to receive this award from the esteemed American Association for the Advancement of Science," said Bill Haney, "and for this recognition for Jim Allison: Breakthrough by Science Magazine, the world's leading outlet for cutting-edge scientific research."
"The magic of this film is that it tells the compelling story of a scientist whose perseverance led him to a Nobel Prize for his revolutionary work on cures for cancer, while providing viewers a lot of fun," said Tyler Jacks, Founding Director of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "Breakthrough was praised as 'the most cheering film of the year' by the Washington Post with a rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is inspired with the Texas drawl of narrator Woody Harrelson and timeless blues harmonica and music of Willie Nelson… so there's something for everyone!"
Among other awards, Jim Allison: Breakthrough has received The Washington Post Top 10 Films of the Year, The Golden Owl from the Bergen International Film Festival, awarded to best research and science documentary, the Best International Documentary of 2020 at the SILBERSALZ Science and Media Awards, and was PBS Independent Lens' #1 Rated Documentary of the Year.
Bill Haney and his team hope the film will continue to encourage viewers from all backgrounds to recognize the importance of science in solving our world's most pressing problems. To this end, he has launched a comprehensive education initiative that has already been woven into the curriculum of more than 1,000 classrooms across the United States, building upon Dr. Allison's story to inspire tomorrow's scientists.
To stream the film and learn more, visit www.breakthroughdoc.com
About Bill Haney (Director/Producer)
Bill is a filmmaker, inventor and entrepreneur. As a writer, director and producer of both narrative and documentary films, he has won The Gabriel Prize, a Silver Hugo, and IDA's Pare Lorentz Award. Additional awards include a Marine Conservation Award, Genesis Award and awards from Amnesty International and Earthwatch. Bill's portfolio as a filmmaker includes award-winning documentaries on socially important subjects such as coal mining (The Last Mountain, 2011) and worker exploitation (The Price of Sugar, 2007) and his work as writer/producer on Tim Disney's civil rights drama, American Violet. He is co-founder and CEO of Dragonfly Therapeutics, a biotech company developing NK-cell based therapies to cure cancer, and co-founder and CEO of Skyhawk Therapeutics, a biotech developing small molecules to correct RNA splicing-modulated diseases ranging from neurological conditions to major cancers.
About Jim Allison: Breakthrough
Praised for its heartfelt and accessible storytelling of one warm-hearted scientist's quest to find a cure for cancer, Jim Allison: Breakthrough presents a new kind of hero —Dr. Jim Allison, who waged a decades-long struggle to bring a novel cancer treatment to patients worldwide. The film paints a richly entertaining portrait of Allison, a native of south Texas and an avid blues harmonica player, whose creativity and boundless curiosity about the human immune system set him on a trail-blazing path to change the face of cancer treatment. Free screening licenses of Breakthrough are also available for classroom educators through the film's education initiative.
About Science Magazine
Science, also widely referred to as Science Magazine, is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the world's top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, is currently circulated weekly and has a subscriber base of around 130,000.
About AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award
Celebrating its 75th year, the AAAS Science Journalism Awards have honored distinguished reporting on science by professional journalists. The awards, an internationally recognized measure of excellence in science journalism, go to individuals (rather than institutions, publishers or employers) for coverage of the sciences, engineering and mathematics.
About Uncommon Productions
Founded in 2000 by Tim Disney and Bill Haney, Uncommon Productions produces documentary and feature films that inspire, enlighten, and engage.
Uncommon Media Contact:
Maura McCarthy
[email protected]
Skyhawk Therapeutics Media Contact:
Anne Deconinck
[email protected]
SOURCE Skyhawk Therapeutics; Uncommon Productions
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