Nini Skye paints a moving portrait of a young girl in need of a life-saving organ, created to both raise awareness of living organ donation, and to inspire people to get involved. Rather than telling a “bleeding heart” story about a little girl who’s dying, it tells a “soaring heart” story of the life she wants to live, and appeals directly to the viewer to help. There are currently over 1,000 Montefiore Einstein patients seeking a living organ donor that could save their life. Nini Skye’s story in the film is an amalgamation of all patients.

Founded in 1884, Bronx-based hospital system Montefiore Einstein believes all human life is worth fighting for. Right now, over 1,000 of its patients are seeking the living organ donor that could save their life. Less than 20% of them will receive one. Our task was to bring awareness to the life-saving practice of living organ donation, bring attention to their patients and help find donors to save their patients’ lives.

The need for living organ donors is universal. There are over 100,000 patients on the waiting list for an organ in the US alone—8,000 people in the country die each year having never received one. But there’s an alternative: living organ donation. With a transfer from a healthy person to a patient in need, living organ donation can shorten the time it takes to receive a kidney or liver transplant—and the results can be truly lifesaving.

Getting someone to give an organ to a stranger requires a truly compelling story. As US laws do not allow the casting of any one patient, it was paramount to cast someone that represented all of them—a person who still felt honest and who could resonate emotionally with audiences. Authenticity was key.

We took a documentary approach, diving deep into existing photos and videos of thousands of kids, scouring through their parents’ social accounts and communicating directly with families. We searched for a magical kid to be the heart and soul of our film, a kid whose real loves, interests, friendships, passions and dreams were documented in photos and videos, which could be used to add substance, depth and meaning to the work. Nini had all of that.

An NYC local, Nini had experience with past medical illness, and her desire to live life to the fullest shone through immediately.