Creating understanding around epilepsy

This documentary weaves together three individuals battling epilepsy, and focuses on the denial, stigma, hope and determination that comes with living with seizures to create understanding around epilepsy.

How does the brain suddenly flip a switch, start short-circuiting, and cause strange behaviors that a person cannot control?

There are multiple types of seizures, and education is needed to dispel myths and create empathy. This documentary aims to reduce the stigma through education and personal stories of three people as they confront epilepsy, empowered to live life to the fullest.

Featured Advocates

Stacia

Documentary Filmmaker, Healthcare Speaker

Stacia Kalinoski is a University of Minnesota graduate and an Emmy Award-winning video journalist. She reported for television stations in Nebraska, Oregon, and Michigan before a seizure turned her journalism career upside down. That led her to a life-saving treatment, and the idea to produce this documentary.

Coach Kill

NCAA Football Coach

Jerry Kill coached college football for more than three decades. He and his wife Rebecca became fierce advocates for epilepsy awareness while he was fighting his own battle at the University of Minnesota. Together they founded the Chasing Dreams Coach Kill Epilepsy Fund. Kill left his head coaching duties at Minnesota to focus on his health, and became an assistant coach at Rutgers University. But seizures forced him to retire from the game in 2017. He is now an ambassador and fundraiser for Southern Illinois University, where he once coached.

Billy

Middle school student

Billy Drash is an active middle schooler in Atlanta and suffers from epilepsy. Billy's parents have worked with doctors to try multiple treatments. A surprise meeting with Coach Kill leads them to try a new therapy.

Depending on where the bad circuit is, and how it fires, and how it spreads, one seizure can look completely different than another.

Dr. Brien Smith | Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Spectrum Health Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI

The reason it is the way it is, and why is it the way it is, is because people don’t know. They don’t understand.

Dr. Patricia Penovich | Minnesota Epilepsy Group in St. Paul, MN.

BRAINSTORM DVDs are available for purchase.

BRAINSTORM premiered on Twin Cities Public Television in November 2016, and has since aired on public television stations nationwide. Share this film to educate employees and students to create understanding around epilepsy so they know how to identify a seizure and offer help.

Brainstorm has been featured at screenings, conferences, and events both locally and across the nation.

I share my journey along with clips from the film – or the entire film – to help the audience understand epilepsy through a personal lens. Many people with epilepsy have emailed after watching Brainstorm to share their stories.

Book Stacia for your next event