• Press Release

World-Renowned Mount Sinai Cardiologist Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Premieres New Film “The Resilient Heart” Coast to Coast

  • New York, NY
  • (April 25, 2017)

Film Debuted at the Newport Beach Film Festival and During the Tribeca Film Festival

Oscar®-nominated and Grammy®-winning director Susan Froemke premiered her feature documentary film “The Resilient Heart” at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday. . The feature-length documentary film, which centers on the work of Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, a world-renowned cardiologist and Physician-in-Chief at The Mount Sinai Hospital, has been picked up by Amazon Prime Video and Amazon.com and may be seen at this link: http://bit.ly/TRHmovie.

The screening event was hosted by Bob Harper, the celebrity trainer and host of NBC’s Biggest Loser, who suffered a heart attack earlier this year. Over the weekend, the film made its world premiere in competition at the acclaimed Newport Beach Film Festival. Ms. Froemke announced the release of “The Resilient Heart” in Park City, Utah, following the 2017 Sundance Film Festival premiere of her documentary “Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman.”

“When I first met Dr. Valentin Fuster, I thought cardiovascular disease was a rich nation’s illness, but I soon found out it was the leading cause of death across the globe,” said Ms. Froemke. “Dr. Fuster’s mission to stem the tide of this debilitating epidemic inspired me to make ‘The Resilient Heart’ with the hope of bringing his important story to a wide audience.”

“Every year, more than 17 million people worldwide die from heart disease,” explained Dr. Fuster. “By 2030 that number is expected to be 23 million, and most of those deaths are preventable. I hope this film will help to change those statistics moving forward.”

The film, made with generous support from the Valentin Fuster Mount Sinai Foundation for Science, Health, and Empowerment, Inc., focuses on Dr. Fuster’s research and travels as he discovers that the real answer to fighting chronic disease lies in early education. “The Resilient Heart” follows Dr. Fuster as he travels from Bogota, Colombia, to Eldoret, Kenya; the island of Grenada; Madrid, Spain; the Harlem neighborhood of New York City; and Mexico, where he encounters the profound impacts of coordinated global health initiatives, proactive public policy, and the passion of people to better the health and well-being of populations, no matter the circumstances.

The film was directed by Ms. Froemke, a non-fiction filmmaker with more than 30 documentaries to her credit, including the iconic “Grey Gardens” (1976), the Academy Award-nominated “Lalee’s Kin” (2001), “Conversations With The Rolling Stones” (1994), and “Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare,” which premiered at Sundance in 2013.

For four decades, Dr. Fuster has been a global leader in the field of cardiology, including cardiovascular medicine, translational research, and education. He has a keen interest in promoting cardiovascular health, especially for the world’s tiniest hearts—those in our children. Dr. Fuster has published more than 1,000 research studies on the prevention and treatment of heart disease, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, and thrombosis.  Dr. Fuster is past President of the American Heart Association and the World Heart Federation.


About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on FacebookTwitter and YouTube.