This sample release is intended for local press (e.g. local alternative/community paper, campus paper or magazine). If you have a lead and would like to pitch to a larger, city/state/national outlet, please contact impact@shellafilms.

Please complete all sections highlighted in yellow.

For Immediate Release

Press Contact (Event Organizer):

Email:

Phone:

(Insert City, Town or Group) Screens Unrest

(City, State) — Date — (XX group) is hosting a screening of Unrest, a Sundance award-winning film by Jennifer Brea at (insert date, time, and location). Twenty-eight year-old Jennifer Brea is working on her PhD at Harvard and months away from marrying the love of her life when she gets a mysterious fever that leaves her bedridden and looking for answers. Disbelieved by doctors yet determined to live, she turns her camera on herself and discovers a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

“riveting...equal parts medical mystery, science lesson,

political advocacy primer and even a love story.”

– San Francisco Chronicle

"remarkably intimate, deeply edifying and a stirring call to action."

- Los Angeles Times

At its core, Unrest is a love story. Together, Jen and her new husband, Omar, must find a way to build a life and fight for a cure. Their struggle to forge their relationship while dealing with her mysterious illness is at once heartbreaking, inspiring and funny.

ALTERNATIVE LANGUAGE:

Unrest tells the first-person story of Jennifer and her husband, Omar, newlyweds grappling with how to live in the face of a debilitating lifelong illness. But it is also a global story about an international community of patients with a serious, life-altering illness — millions suffering invisibly and left at the margins of medicine and science.

“When I got sick, I was shocked to encounter this world I had never heard of and knew nothing about. For decades, people living with ME have been missing from their lives. It’s my hope that in telling this story, we will no longer be relegated to the shadows, that our experience will be seen and recognized.” – Jennifer Brea, Director of Unrest

(Insert quote by organizer, if possible)

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a systemic neuroimmune condition characterised by post-exertional malaise (a severe worsening of symptoms after even minimal exertion). It causes dysregulation of both the immune system and the nervous system. The effects of ME are devastating enough to leave 25% of patients housebound or bedbound. In many parts of the world, it is commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. An estimated 15-30 million people around the world are suffering from ME.

The film launches with an attached social impact campaign, Time for Unrest, which aims to increase the public’s knowledge of this little known disease, mobilize the patient and ally community, encourage empathetic care from medical practitioners, and encourage more research in countries throughout the world.

“Community screenings are a critical part of building the movement to get ME the recognition and resources it so badly needs. It will take local communities discussing this disease to change the stigma, spread the word, and create the impetus for concrete change in our lifetime.”- Laurie Jones, Global Director of Impact for Time for Unrest

To learn more about the film and campaign visit timeforunrest.org or on social media, post using #timeforunrest.

The screening will be (insert address, date, and time). To buy tickets (insert directions on buying tickets).