Filmmaker Bill Haney Wins Prestigious Science Journalism Award For His Critically Acclaimed Documentary Jim Allison: Breakthrough

BOSTON, Nov. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Director Bill Haney adds a new prize to his list of awards as a filmmaker. Today the American Association of the Advancement of Science announced Haney has received the prominent Gold Prize for In-Depth Reporting for the 2020 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards for his award-winning documentary, Jim Allison: Breakthrough.  

Among other awards for Jim Allison: Breakthrough, it has received The Washington Post Top 10 Films of the Year, The Golden Owl from the Bergen International Film Festival, awarded to best research and science documentary, the Best International Documentary of 2020 at the SILBERSALZ Science and Media Awards, and was PBS Independent Lens' #1 Rated Documentary of the Year.

"The magic of this film is that it tells the compelling story of a scientist whose perseverance led him to a Nobel Prize for his revolutionary work that led directly to cures for cancer, while providing viewers a lot of fun," said Tyler Jacks, Founding Director of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "Breakthrough was praised as 'the most cheering film of the year' by the Washington Post with a rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is inspired with the Texas drawl of narrator Woody Harrelson and timeless blues harmonica and music of Willie Nelson… so there's something for everyone!"

"I am truly honored and humbled to receive this award from the esteemed AAAS," says Bill Haney, "and I am proud to continue to celebrate the brilliance of gifted scientists like Jim Allison and his team through the storytelling in this film."

Haney adds, "In the age of Covid-19, when we are facing global health challenges that know no boundaries of race or religion, the urgent necessity of inventing novel life-saving drugs makes Jim's story especially powerful. The FDA, global research universities and major pharmaceutical companies all helped Jim on this path and will also play critical roles in solving Covid-19, but Jim's advances were also built on a culture of truth-telling, fact-based work, selfless leadership and a commitment to purposes above the narrow, the greedy and the personal. Jim didn't care about how he looked, whether he made any money or what people thought of him. He cared about doing the right thing in the right way. Jim and the unrelenting scientists like him are my heroes – and I'll bet they become yours."

Bill Haney anticipates this film will continue to encourage viewers from all backgrounds to recognize the importance of science in solving our world's most pressing problems. He has also launched an education initiative to reach over 2,000 of classrooms with Dr. Allison's story and to inspire tomorrow's heroes.

To stream the film and learn more, visit www.breakthroughdoc.com

About Bill Haney (Director/Producer)
Bill is a filmmaker, inventor and entrepreneur. As a writer, director and producer of both narrative and documentary films, he has won The Gabriel Prize, a Silver Hugo, and IDA's Pare Lorentz Award. Additional awards include a Marine Conservation Award, Genesis Award and awards from Amnesty International and Earthwatch. Bill's portfolio as a filmmaker includes award-winning documentaries on socially important subjects such as coal mining (The Last Mountain, 2011) and worker exploitation (The Price of Sugar, 2007) and his work as writer/producer on Tim Disney's civil rights drama, American Violet. He is the co-founder and CEO of Dragonfly Therapeutics, a biotech company developing NK-cell based therapies to cure cancer, and the co-founder and CEO of Skyhawk Therapeutics, a biotech developing small molecules to correct RNA splicing disease ranging from neurological conditions to major cancers.

About Jim Allison: Breakthrough
Praised for its heartfelt and accessible storytelling of one warm-hearted scientist's quest to find a cure for cancer, Jim Allison: Breakthrough presents a new kind of hero —Dr. Jim Allison, who waged a decades-long struggle to bring a novel cancer treatment to patients worldwide. The film paints a richly entertaining portrait of Allison, a native of south Texas and an avid blues harmonica player, whose creativity and boundless curiosity about the human immune system set him on a trail-blazing path to change the face of cancer treatment. Free screening licenses of Breakthrough are also available for classroom educators through the film's education initiative.

About AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award
Celebrating its 75^th year, the AAAS Science Journalism Awards have honored distinguished reporting on science by professional journalists. The awards, an internationally recognized measure of excellence in science journalism, go to individuals (rather than institutions, publishers or employers) for coverage of the sciences, engineering and mathematics.

About Uncommon Productions
Founded in 2000 by Tim Disney and Bill Haney, Uncommon Productions produces documentary and feature films that inspire, enlighten, and engage.

Media Contact:
Maura McCarthy
[email protected]

SOURCE Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc.; Uncommon Productions