VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The award-winning team behind “Mixed Match,†a feature-length documentary about the difficulties multiethnic patients with deadly blood diseases face when searching for bone marrow donors, has launched an online fundraising campaign to raise $25,000 to support its production and post-production work.
Jeff Chiba Stearns is the director and executive producer of the film, which was inspired by the work of Los Angeles-based outreach group Mixed Marrow.
According to a statement by Stearns’ Meditating Bunny Studio Inc., “in order for a marrow or stem cell match to occur between a patient and donor, the genetic markers on cells must align. Because these markers are inherited from parents, their children are a blend both of their parents’ markers. Therefore, for mixed patients, their monoracial parents and relatives will not likely be a match, and their siblings only hold about a 1 in 4 chance of being a match.â€
The National Marrow Donor Program states, “thousands of patients with blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases need a bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant.â€
“Mixed Match†will follow recently diagnosed multiethnic patients in search of donors, some of whom struggle through rounds of chemotherapy as they spend months searching for a match. The journey of a patient who is in remission after undergoing a successful donation will also be documented. Family members of another patient who did not find a suitable match, and passed away, will also share the story of a former patient. Finally, the documentary will also feature a reunion between a donor and patient after a successful transplant, as the two meet for the very first time.
The Mixed Match team launched the Indiegogo campaign on March 2, and has raised $4,440 as of March 27. The campaign closes on Friday, April 27.
For more information about the film, visit www.mixedmatchmovie.com. The campaign Website is www.indiegogo.com/mixed-match.
Stearns’ most recent film, his first feature documentary, “One Big Hapa Family,†is about children of mixed-Japanese decent and the high Japanese Canadian interracial marriage rate.
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