About this Short Film
Second Chance, a short film by Eric Sanchez (United States, 2020), sits within our Focus on Ability programme as a thoughtful and hopeful piece. The film explores themes of medical disability, stroke, mentorship and the importance of group and organisational support. It offers a careful look at how people and communities navigate challenges, emphasising abilities, resilience and the possibility of renewal. Presented for adult audiences, Second Chance is a quiet contribution to conversations about access, care and collective effort. Festival viewers will find it a subtle, human portrait that complements other work in the programme highlighting lived experience and achievement.
Film Details
Film Transcript
I had a stroke before, and I had a stroke about a year and a half ago, and trust me, you know, it is no joke. I never, ever imagined that that would be happening to me. It was about 6:30, feeling kind of nauseating. Santi said, "I'm gonna go ahead and go to sleep," so I fell asleep. I woke up the following morning, which was on Monday morning at about 7 o'clock, and I was seeing double. That had never happened to me in Montana and, as far as I'm concerned, it was unexplainable. I splashed my face with water over and over again; I was still seeing double, and that's when I finally went to the hospital.
Yeah, mine's a little bit different — just crazy. It was back in 2015. Actually I was in Hawaii with my wife. We'd landed that same day and I suffered a stroke, so it was my wife's birthday. For some reason something woke me up; it made me jump out, grab my stuff and get out of bed, and I looked at my wife — thank God she was awake. I jumped up, I tried to say "help," you know, but I just couldn't. I guess I got up and just fell. The next thing I know I was in Honolulu, and once I landed I got picked up by ambulance and brought to Malaya Kaiser rehab, and that's where it all started. That's where I learnt how to walk, learnt movements, learnt how to give my speech back, learnt how to basically talk like a child — learning everything from the ground up.
Look at what you're doing now, bro. You're the executive producer for your documentary project — it's called Second Chance — and you know, you're great. You're putting the word out there, you put some positive feedback for other victims of a stroke, let them know that they have hope, and they do have hope. This is something that actually happened to you and me and other people out there as well.
Yeah, that's why one thing that we want to do is start inviting some professionals out here to give you some feedback. We'll invite people over like physicians from different hospitals, coaches, nutritionists — everything, any information. The documentary film Second Chance will visit business corporations and we're gonna talk, and you're gonna learn so much that you do have a second chance of life. And that's one thing that was my goal from day one, and we're gonna make it happen.
Filmmaker
Eric Sanchez is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Eric Sanchez.
The talk really inspired me a stroke survivor
Survivors stay strong