SAN DIEGO — Award winning Alaskan filmmaker Steve Kroschel's documentary, "Dying To Have Known," premiered last week at the Gerson Institute in downtown San Diego.
The Gerson Institute, based on Dr. Max Gerson's vision, philosophy and successful work, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the healing and prevention of chronic and degenerative diseases.
"Dying To Have Known" is the sequel to Kroschel's film, "The Gerson Miracle—an Epic Story Of Hope," which won the 2004 Golden Palm Award for Best Picture at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, and is presently being aired on Public Access/Free Speech TV.
Kroschel's friends thought Gerson's success in healing was "too good to be true," so he decided to take a more critical look at Gerson's life and work in the second film.
In the 1930s German born physician Dr. Gerson developed a nutritional program that proved successful in curing skin tuberculosis, then a major cause of death. Some reported that it also healed their cancer. Because he was Jewish, Dr. Gerson and his family had to flee Nazi Germany. The majority of his family members perished in the concentration camps.
Gerson documented 50 cases in which his diet therapy cured advanced cancer, and published his findings in 1958. The Gerson Therapy is now used in healing centers throughout the world.
After Gerson healed Dr. Albert Schweitzer's wife of lung tuberculosis, and his daughter of a rare skin disease, Schweitzer called Gerson "one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history."
"Dying To Have Known" is an investigative journey into the Gerson therapy system. Kroschel meets with "Quack-debunkers," visits former Gerson patients whose names he randomly picked from decade-old file boxes, and takes us to some unusually progressive doctors and hospitals in Japan and Holland, where the Gerson Therapy is used today.
Kroschel, who lives in a log cabin on a forty-acre sanctuary near Haines, Alaska, has been making films for over twenty years. He says that documentary films enjoying exceptional popularity right now.
"What inspired me to do the first film 'Gerson Miracle' was a VHS tape that a friend had sent me of Charlotte Gerson giving a lecture," said Kroschel. "I felt her powerful message was overshadowed by a technical format that could have been improved to ensure wider distribution, so I offered to do something better for the Gerson Institute."
"I shot it in 52 days ... on a shoe string using some tricks I've learned in the two decades of being a film maker," continued Kroschel. "A couple of Hollywood distributors are looking at it right now."
"'The Gerson Miracle' is an incredible educational tool for the public. We receive phone calls from the entire country expressing gratitude for making it available for public viewing," said Anita Wilson, Executive Director of the Gerson Institute. "We were getting 80,000 hits on our website, compared to a daily average of 10,000, when it first viewed. Thanks to the films, Dr. Max Gerson's work has been made available to thousands."
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