After a successful Irish release in 2014, Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story is to have a limited release in the UK from October 9th, including screenings in London at Picturehouse Central and Manchester at the Irish World Heritage Centre. The acclaimed documentary will be released by True Films in conjunction with Picturehouse and the Cinema Partnership and will be available on VOD and DVD from October 23rd.
A tragic fall left blind athlete, Mark Pollock, paralysed. Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story is the story of how he found his courage again.
Directed by award winning filmmaker Ross Whitaker (When Ali Came to Ireland; Saviours), Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story follows the almost unbelievable tragedies that life has thrown at Mark and his resolve to move beyond them. Unbroken by blindness at 22, Mark was a Commonwealth Games medal winner and competed in ultra endurance races across deserts, mountains and the polar ice caps and, ten years after losing his sight, he became the first blind person to race to the South Pole; a race that allowed him to finally put the demons of blindness behind him. But then, just four weeks from the day of his planned wedding to fiancée Simone, a fall 25 feet from a second story window left Mark near death and paralysed from the waist down.
This moving, fascinating and ultimately uplifting film brings the audience to Mark’s bedside in the acute ward of a spinal hospital – blind, now paralysed and broken. The close friendship between Mark and the filmmaker has produced a delicate, deeply personal and intensely intimate film. Six years in the making, it tells the story of Mark’s eventual rehabilitation and his mission to find and connect people worldwide to fast track a cure for paralysis, a mission which gives the audience a glimpse of the frontiers of robotics and medical science.
Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story is ultimately a testament to the power of human relationships. It follows Mark and Simone as they use their combined force to challenge their fate and how the support of thousands of people around the world has carried them on.
Unbreakable also documents how Mark and Simone have funded their cure exploration through Run in the Dark. This year over 25,000 people will join this global fundraiser at one of the official events in London, Manchester, Belfast, Dublin and Cork or at one of the 45 pop-ups that take place from Sydney to San Francisco (www.runinthedark.org).
Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story was produced with the participation of the Irish Film Board / Bord Scannán na hÉireann; RTÉ and Rehab.