JenniferBrea.com
Fighting for invisible illness and autoimmune disease.
Five years ago, Jennifer Brea suddenly fell ill with a disease doctors couldn’t diagnose. Without treatment, she became bedridden—and unable to move. But that’s when she chose to fight back. By documenting her struggle in the film Unrest, and by battling persistent gender biases in medical care, Brea offers community and inspiration for anyone facing adversity.
Jennifer Brea is director of the award-winning documentary Unrest, an outspoken health equality and disability rights activist, and a TED Speaker. She’s also a beacon of hope for those suffering from invisible disease—in her case, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), or chronic fatigue syndrome—and for anyone living strong in the face of hardship. Her TED Talk—viewed over a million times, and translated into more than 25 languages—was the highest-rated presentation at the 2016 TED Summit (and the first TED Talk on ME, ever).
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis afflicts 1 to 2.5 million Americans (and disproportionally affects women). But due to historical stigma, lack of research and education, patients are routinely misdiagnosed—or are told their symptoms are simply imagined. Through her documentary, her talks, and her activism, Brea hopes to transform the perception of this much-misunderstood malady. As co-founder of #MEAction—an international network of patients empowering each other to work for health equality—she fights for greater awareness of our autoimmune disease epidemic, of gender bias in medicine, and of the harmful stigmas around invisible disabilities.
Premiering in the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize for editing, Unrest has screened at festivals such as SxSW, HotDocs, CPH:Dox, River Run (winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature), and the Nashville Film Festival (winning the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature). It’s been called “stirring” (Indiewire), “affecting” (Hollywood Reporter), “a high-grade example of the form” (Variety), and “a revelation and a call to action” (Salt Lake City Tribune). It opened in New York in the fall, and will be broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens in winter 2018.
After graduating from Princeton University with an AB in Politics, Brea was a freelance journalist in China and East and Southern Africa, as well as a TED Fellow. She was pursuing her PhD in Government at Harvard—studying political economy and statistics—when she first got sick. She splits her time between California and New Jersey.