Documentary Screening: "Dancing at the Vatican"

Location

Manchester Hall, Manchester Auditorium

Free

“Dancing at the Vatican,” a short documentary featuring Latin American Huntington’s disease-afflicted families’ remarkable 2017 encounter with Pope Francis at the Vatican, will have an exclusive screening at USD on Wednesday, February 19, 2020.

The film’s producer and narrator, Emmy-award-winning former NBC-TV foreign correspondent Charles Sabine, will introduce the film and take questions afterwards. A leading global Huntington’s advocate, Sabine carries the HD gene. His father died of HD, and his brother has the disease.

The film portrays the struggles of Latin American families battling HD, the terrible stigma and discrimination associated with the incurable, deadly brain disorder, and extreme poverty. It follows them on their extraordinary journey to Rome, their tour of the city and visit to the Italian Senate, and the historic audience with Pope Francis, who declared to the world that HD should be “hidden no more.”

“In the course of 26 years as a television journalist, living through more than a dozen wars, five revolutions, and four earthquakes, I witnessed many examples of people achieving the seemingly impossible,” Sabine says at the start of the documentary. “None, though, was as inspirational as the tale I’m about to tell.”

Additionally, there will be commentary by Ignacio Muñoz-Sanjuan, PhD, CHDI Foundation, Inc., a leading neuroscientist seeking HD treatments and co-founder of Factor-H, which aids Latin America’s HD-affected families.

The event is free and open to the USD community, the local Huntington’s and biomedical communities, and the public.

The screening takes place from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in Manchester Auditorium and will be followed by a reception. 

Please RSVP by email at: cctc@sandiego.edu, or (619) 260-7936.

Please click here to view our event flyer.

Sponsors include USD Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, Ionis, Genentech, Origami, USD International Center, USD Enhanced Student Faculty Interaction Fund, USD Humanities Center, USD History Department, USD Program in Latin American Studies, and USD Department of Communication Studies.