Gleason

An Amazon Studios and Open Road Films release

Includes a post-film conversation with Director Clay Tweel and subject Michel Varisco hosted by IndieWire's Steve Greene. Reception to follow.

At the age of 34, Steve Gleason, a former NFL defensive back and New Orleans hero, was diagnosed with ALS and given a life expectancy of two to five years. Weeks later, Steve and his wife Michel discovered that Michel was pregnant with their first child.

Director Clay Tweel's film masterfully assembles roughly four years of footage, including personal and surprisingly humorous video journals shot by Gleason himself for his then-unborn son Rivers, and the athlete's globe-trotting adventures undertaken as part of his mission to live his life to the fullest. What emerges from this incredibly intimate portrait is not only a showcase of an astonishing assertion of the human spirit, but, more importantly, a powerful and inspirational look at life, love and family, and the intense bonds between husbands and wives and fathers and sons, in sickness and in health.