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Featured Guest:
Dr. Denise Wunderler Executive Producer, Producer, Key Cast Member, "Vienna: Suddenly an Angel" film Published October 10, 2025 This 12th interview for Wisdom for Wannabes features an in-depth conversation between Dr. Denise Wunderler and Jackie Morreale, focusing on Dr. Wunderler's journey following the sudden unexplained death of her daughter, Vienna. The discussion covers the creation of the documentary "Vienna: Suddenly an Angel," the challenges and triumphs of raising awareness for Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC), and the personal and professional impacts of this mission. Dr. Wunderler shares insights into her nonprofit work, the filmmaking process, and the importance of community support and resilience. Listen to/watch the full podcast recording, or read the transcript below: |
Full Interview with Dr. Denise Wunderler:
Great quotes from the interview with Dr. Denise Wunderler:
- "Ask lots of questions."
- "Volunteering opened doors."
- "It's about awareness."
- "Community support is vital."
- "It's a collaborative effort."
- "Our goal is to inspire others to care."
- "Personal moments connect us."
- "The film has already received positive feedback and awards."
- "We're expanding awareness and research."
Vienna: Suddenly an Angel film poster
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Key Takeaways:
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Interview Transcript:
Jackie Morreale (00:00)
Hello, my name is Jackie Morreale and I am the host of Wisdom for Wannabes, a new podcast series that seeks to discover wise words in business, beauty and betterment. Today's focus is on the topic of beauty by way of documentary filmmaking, but also checks the boxes in business by way of nonprofit entrepreneurship and betterment by way of knowledge as a physician and evangelist of SUDC awareness.
I want to welcome today's guest, Dr. Denise Wunderler. Welcome, Denise, to Wisdom for wannabes. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (00:35)
Thank you so much for having me, Jackie. I'm so thrilled to finally talk with you.
Jackie Morreale (00:39)
Absolutely! Dr. Denise Wunderler is a mom of three, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, an international speaker, a published author, as well as the founder and president of the 501c3 nonprofit Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness Inc, which she founded in 2017 in honor of her two-year-old daughter, Vienna.
Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood or SUDC is a category of death in children, adolescents and teenagers ages one through 18 that remains unexplained after a thorough investigation. SUDC is SIDS part two, but in kids one through 18 years old. You can learn more about her nonprofit and their mission for SUDC awareness at: www.vienna.team
Dr. Denise Wunderler also recently became a filmmaker. Yay! She's an executive producer, a producer and a key cast member of the short documentary film entitled, Vienna: Suddenly an Angel.
The film explores Dr. Denise Wunderler and her family's journey after the tragic and unexplained death of her daughter, Vienna. The film's world premiere was at the Garden State Film Festival in March 2025, and the film has now won awards at the Garden State Film Festival, the Long Island International Film Expo, New Hope Film Festival, and will be showing at the upcoming Chelsea Film Festival in New York City on Sunday, October 19th. Dr. Denise Wunderler, what can you not do? You are such a powerhouse. I'm so happy to know you. Thank you so much for being here today. I can't wait to hear more about your story and your film. Oh my goodness. So let's start off the interview with some background questions. Absolutely. I'm overwhelmed by you, but anyway, let's start with just the basics.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (02:34)
Thank you, Jackie. Thank you.
Jackie Morreale (02:42)
What is your name? Where are you from? Where do you live now?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (02:47)
Well, I'm Dr. Denise Wunderler, like you mentioned, and I'm also a sports medicine physician too. Put that in there. My paid job. My paid job is a sports med doc. Everything else is all volunteer. But anyways, we live in central PA outside of Hershey and grew up mostly, I guess, in Northampton, PA, Lehigh Valley area, but my dad was Air Force. So we moved around quite a lot. So I lived in six different states by the time I was nine. This is including Alaska, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, Missouri, and then New Jersey. Then, settled a little bit in a couple of places, but I've been all over the country.
Jackie Morreale (03:26)
New Jersey is how we know each other, right? Our pants overlapped in Jersey and we've since moved on. I'm so glad that they did and I got to know you at that point and that we're still in touch. I just tried to recap it but what do you do and what is your passion?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (03:34)
Me too. In terms of sports medicine, so my paid job, I'm a sports medicine physician. I also do occupational medicine and travel medicine at a company called Harley-Davidson Motor Company. I work there on site twice a week. I do remote work for them. It's a very flexible job. It’s an incredible position, and I really, really enjoy working there.
I get involved with the safety aspect of the plant and it's fascinating. So it's really been interesting to take all my knowledge from sports medicine, always working in orthopedic offices. This is really my first position in a very, different type of environment, which I absolutely love. I really enjoy going to work with my steel-toed shoes on and my black scrubs and Harley shirt and safety glasses.
I really enjoy learning about the process of how to put motorcycles together. Before I got this job, the main thing I was concerned about motorcycles is I did not want to hit them when I was driving on the road. That was my only concern and hoping that everyone is safe. Now I have a whole new appreciation and love for these amazing machines.
Jackie Morreale (04:34)
Yes, scary. Good for you. Do you ride? Have to ask.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (04:44)
No, I don't. Maybe one day. I'm at the plant where they build the motorcycles and I'm in the medical clinic that's there for the employees. Yeah. You mentioned about my passion. Honestly, I have a ton of passions. I have a ton of them, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time. But my number one passion is my family. So whatever is revolving around my family, obviously Vienna is a huge part of that. Of course sports medicine too, but things kind of shifted of course, after Vienna passed away. I still have my love of sports medicine, but it's definitely changed. Obviously, Vienna and the film and the nonprofit, my family being number one, are my main passions, and staying healthy too. That's really important too.
Jackie Morreale (05:11)
How many years have you been doing this? Whether we're talking about medicine or we're talking about the foundation, filmmaking?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (05:31)
Well, I graduated from medical school in 2004. So 2004. So I've been an actual physician for now 21 years, which is really hard to believe. It's incredible. In terms of nonprofit, so Vienna passed away in November 12, 2017. Then the nonprofit was officially incorporated on what should have been her fourth birthday, January 19, 2019. The nonprofit's been going strong for over six years. I know we'll get more into the film, but that's been an idea since COVID. So, five years.
Jackie Morreale (06:01)
Here it is, you've made it become a reality. Good for you. What is your favorite part of your role? I know you have so many different roles and passions and things going on in your life. What is your favorite part?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (06:04)
I think overall the commonality amongst everything is making a positive impact. Wherever that is, whether it's in my family's lives, especially our children's lives. My husband's already an adult, but still trying to make a positive impact for him, for me, for our family, but especially for our kids, since they're growing up. My two oldest, I wish Vienna was growing up too, but I do feel that she does watch us every day and so I also want to have a positive impact for her as well even though she's not here physically. I think everything that I do is always striving for that being positive and uplifting other people because that helps everybody. Uplifting other people also helps me too. It's a very symbiotic relationship, I would say as I look at the world.
Jackie Morreale (06:55)
You are such an inspiring human being, Denise, you really are. Unfortunately, our paths crossed and we have this common thing where we have both experienced this tragic loss. I'm so inspired by you and how you put your family first and everything that you do is to uplift others. It's just beautiful to see.
So yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. Lots of people are watching what you're doing and getting inspired by you. Thank you. I know it's not easy to talk about, but we're going to make it through. Let's keep it light. Let's go to some quick-fire questions.
As a filmmaker. What is your favorite movie of all time? It could be your own.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (07:30)
I was thinking about this. well, of course, this is, I mean, obviously, so of course, Vienna: Suddenly an Angel, absolutely my favorite film of all time. But outside of this, Into the Wild. Written by John Krakauer. It's a book about Christopher McCandless traveling to Alaska, passing away. Yes, but the film is incredible. One of my favorite books is Into the Wild as well.
Eddie Vedder did all the music. Sean Penn was the main guy for the film. Eddie Vedder, and I love Pearl Jam. I love Eddie Vedder's voice. For me, it is the perfect film because I love Alaska. Was there as a kid, went back five times, to see my sister who now lives in Montana, my oldest sister. It's such an amazing place. The film was set in pretty much one of my favorite places on earth, always makes it even more enjoyable to watch. Except the part when he dies, I don't like that part. But him just exploring. And I'm very comfortable with death. Unfortunately, since 2017, I'm sure you have very different relationship as well because of your brother.
I'm very comfortable with death, but I just didn't like to see it on the screen just for me. So now when I watch it again, I just pass that part. I like the fun part where he like he has eyes tearing up when he sees these caribou that are running, free in the Alaskan wilderness. I love that movie.
Jackie Morreale (08:35)
Right. Powerful. Do you feel like when you lived in Alaska that there was this calling to nature, like there is in that storyline or did it remind you of growing up or it's just something that's really well done and you love it?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (08:58)
Definitely well done and I love it for sure. But when I lived there as a kid, I was four, five and six years old. I do remember a lot of it because it was just a positive experience for my whole nuclear family from way back when I was little. Of course, we had a family of six. But then I went back because my oldest sister, Diane, stayed up there for another 15 years. I went back to see her and then I went back for a rotation in Dillingham. So she was mainly in Anchorage, which was South Central.
And I went to Dillingham, Alaska, Southwestern Alaska, which you can't drive there. It's only by boat or by plane. Can you get there? I was there for a month, Kanak-Kanak Hospital doing a rotation as a fourth year. Of course, I loved it. I tried everything I could in terms of the food, I tried moose and elk and just everything that they offered. I said, sure, I'll try it.
Jackie Morreale (09:31)
Why not? When in Dillingham.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (09:49)
People are so incredibly friendly and nice, and I just love the culture. That's a huge part of Alaska that I really love is the fact that it is a whole nother culture within our 50 United States. I love learning about it.
Jackie Morreale (09:58)
It sounds like you have a lot more movies to make on your horizon, just in my opinion, just from hearing that one story. But what is your favorite book of all time? I was going to say it could be one that you published or an article that you published as well.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (10:07)
Into the Wild. Well, the articles were before medical school and that was all scientific kind of stuff, which is interesting, but not my interest now. When I was in college, I really enjoyed this book called Siddhartha, actually. It goes into one of your next questions. My favorite topics in school, biology, of course, I was a biology major in pre-med, of course. That was always, always my love. I was taking the highest-level classes I could.
But then also surprisingly, I fell in love with this other course, Religions of India. It was one of those things. I went to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, and one of the requirements was you had to take at least one religion class. Yes, I was so thankful that that was a requirement, because otherwise I would have never taken this class, ever. It was one of those things where I remember sitting in class and just absorbing every single thing that Dr. Schwartz told us. I barely had to study for this class because it was just immediately absorbed into my brain. It was incredible. I have such a scientific mind and the fact that something that was so different really rung true with me. Then reading this book, Siddhartha, about Buddha and I grew up Catholic, I'm spiritual. I don't practice any particular religion currently, but I believe in God, not to get religious or anything, but it was just fascinating to me.
Then I read the book Siddhartha, one or two times after college. It was just a fascinating book about the Buddha. Surprising, but I really enjoy learning.
Jackie Morreale (11:43)
Yes. I don't know where I read this, but I read that religions are all branches on the same tree somewhere. I think there's something to be learned about yourself and about others and about all different belief systems. I think it's all part of a greater good. That's wonderful that that book rang true with you. I want to read it now.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:00)
Fascinating, because I really enjoy learning how other people think. It's fascinating to me. and yeah, religions are really interesting to me, too.
Jackie Morreale (12:10)
You've been and lived so many different places, do you have a favorite place in the world, Alaska?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:15)
Alaska. Of course, wherever my family is. That's number one. But Alaska is my favorite in the United States. There's so many places outside the US that I haven't traveled to. I've traveled to a handful or so. Of those, I love Brazil. I love Peru and Nepal. I was there for all different reasons. Europe is very interesting, too, with the history.
One day, we would love to go to Vienna, which I know we will. Of course, we wanted to go with Vienna, and show her how she was named. She was named, Vienna, after the capital of Austria, because that's my heritage.
Jackie Morreale (12:45)
I love that, I have family in Austria too. It's one of my favorite places. Vienna is one of my favorite places too. So clean, beautiful, just people are super friendly. I've never been to Alaska. So everything you described about Alaska to me is like the friends and family I have in Austria.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:48)
Really? Yes.
Jackie Morreale (13:02)
For sure, one day you and your family, I'm sure, will love to go and it'll be a really nice spiritual thing for you guys, to go visit. I didn't know the backstory, but now that I do, I love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:14)
Yes, thank you. I'm sure you and your family will go to Alaska too and I'm happy to help you determine where to go. So different whether you go to Anchorage or in the bush. I also went to Igiugig which is a small little Eskimo village when I did my rotation out there.
Jackie Morreale (13:18)
My gosh. Amazing. How do you even get medicine to the hospital? There's snow, there's ice, there's no roads. There are so many issues!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:36)
Yes, Alaska is a whole nother world, especially when it comes to medicine.
Jackie Morreale (13:38)
A whole nother world. We touched on favorite subject in school. I know that you're always taking super easy, biology classes and that's your favorite. And you took the religion class that really meant something to you. Anything else in terms of your favorite school subject or favorite things in school?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:56)
I really enjoyed Genetics in college. Medical school, I really enjoyed everything, because I knew it was for the goal. I was very driven. I always wanted to be a physician. I did take a tap dance class in college as part of my second semester senior year. Yeah, just for fun. I did all these tough classes. The second semester I took an acting class.
Jackie Morreale (14:08)
Did you really? Good for you. Well, now you're an actor, an award-winning actor. That totally makes sense to me.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (14:17)
For us, there's no scripts involved. Of course, Marko, the director, he had questions for us, but no, there really were no scripts. But back then I decided, I'll just take a class just for fun. I did acting for that semester and then I took a tap dance class, still have my tap shoes. Just fun stuff. I did take two high level biology classes, of course, but it was my second semester senior year. So, I said, let me cruise a little bit. Of course I played basketball in college too. So that was incredibly hectic and busy because there's always preseason.
Of course you play throughout, its covers both first and second semester. Then of course, if you go into playoffs. Pretty much my whole entire college experience involved basketball, and I still love that sport.
Jackie Morreale (14:54)
That is my next question. Do you have a favorite sport?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (15:04)
Yes, basketball, absolutely. I coach my kids' teams when they ask me. When they're in rec basketball.
Jackie Morreale (15:10)
They would be so lucky to have you. Wow, that's awesome.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (15:12)
I love it. I even coached the one team when my oldest daughter wasn't on the team. She was on the actual middle school team and they needed a coach. I said, absolutely, I love the game. Then, my oldest, sometimes she would assistant coach with me, but we just had a blast. I just really love the game. I feel there's a lot I can give, especially to young girls when it comes to the sport of basketball and what it can teach you in terms of leadership and working together as a team for the common goal. Being responsible, getting to practice on time, all these things that - I feel - every kid should know.
Jackie Morreale (15:42)
Yes. I’m convinced that you could do anything, Denise, really. I'm picturing you in tap dancing shoes, on stage, in film. You can do anything. You've published, you've presented internationally, you've lived all over. You're really breaking the mold. I'm very impressed by you. So who is your favorite filmmaker? And it can be you.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (16:06)
No, I definitely don't want to choose myself. No, no. But honestly, my team, my team. Because before this film experience, I didn't know really any true filmmakers when it comes to films out in the world. When we started this journey, three plus years ago.
Asking various people who I knew. When we lived in New Jersey, honestly, the reason I thought about a film was because someone had asked me during one of the many podcasts and interviews during the COVID time period, what's next for Team Vienna? What's next for your nonprofit Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness? One of the things I said was, I would like to do a film. I don't know what it looks like or what it would be like. It would be a true-life story.
With other actors regarding our family or some documentary. I really didn't know at that point. For the next couple of years, then I started brainstorming and just trying to think of, who do I already know who can potentially give me some light? Because I know absolutely nothing about creating a film. I don't even know where to start, but let me start picking the brains of people I know. I started making a little list in my head. It was a short list because I didn't know many people, but even people who are in video production.
Just something, not necessarily some big blockbuster film. Then I started talking to friends of mine and then friends of friends of mine, because people are incredible and wanted to connect me with other people. That's how it started the ball rolling. It wasn't until, so 2021, we dedicated a bench, at Cross Farm Park in Holmdel, New Jersey.
It was then the next year. So now we moved to Pennsylvania (PA) in 2021. The next year, we go back to the bench and we're doing a small gathering, family and friends, doing our international, Vienna's Day of International SUDC Awareness where all seven continents support every single year. It's really unbelievable how people are involved. So that's in May every year. So it's always the Saturday after Mother's Day, Mother's Day in the US, but the Saturday after Mother's Day.
Jackie Morreale (17:32)
When can we celebrate that day, Vienna's International Day?
I've seen these videos. That you have many contacts around the world is an understatement. You even have people supporting your 501c3 organization from Antarctica. You have people on every single continent. This is a worldwide movement to support what you're doing in memory of your daughter. It's amazing.
(Continued below)
Hello, my name is Jackie Morreale and I am the host of Wisdom for Wannabes, a new podcast series that seeks to discover wise words in business, beauty and betterment. Today's focus is on the topic of beauty by way of documentary filmmaking, but also checks the boxes in business by way of nonprofit entrepreneurship and betterment by way of knowledge as a physician and evangelist of SUDC awareness.
I want to welcome today's guest, Dr. Denise Wunderler. Welcome, Denise, to Wisdom for wannabes. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (00:35)
Thank you so much for having me, Jackie. I'm so thrilled to finally talk with you.
Jackie Morreale (00:39)
Absolutely! Dr. Denise Wunderler is a mom of three, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, an international speaker, a published author, as well as the founder and president of the 501c3 nonprofit Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness Inc, which she founded in 2017 in honor of her two-year-old daughter, Vienna.
Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood or SUDC is a category of death in children, adolescents and teenagers ages one through 18 that remains unexplained after a thorough investigation. SUDC is SIDS part two, but in kids one through 18 years old. You can learn more about her nonprofit and their mission for SUDC awareness at: www.vienna.team
Dr. Denise Wunderler also recently became a filmmaker. Yay! She's an executive producer, a producer and a key cast member of the short documentary film entitled, Vienna: Suddenly an Angel.
The film explores Dr. Denise Wunderler and her family's journey after the tragic and unexplained death of her daughter, Vienna. The film's world premiere was at the Garden State Film Festival in March 2025, and the film has now won awards at the Garden State Film Festival, the Long Island International Film Expo, New Hope Film Festival, and will be showing at the upcoming Chelsea Film Festival in New York City on Sunday, October 19th. Dr. Denise Wunderler, what can you not do? You are such a powerhouse. I'm so happy to know you. Thank you so much for being here today. I can't wait to hear more about your story and your film. Oh my goodness. So let's start off the interview with some background questions. Absolutely. I'm overwhelmed by you, but anyway, let's start with just the basics.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (02:34)
Thank you, Jackie. Thank you.
Jackie Morreale (02:42)
What is your name? Where are you from? Where do you live now?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (02:47)
Well, I'm Dr. Denise Wunderler, like you mentioned, and I'm also a sports medicine physician too. Put that in there. My paid job. My paid job is a sports med doc. Everything else is all volunteer. But anyways, we live in central PA outside of Hershey and grew up mostly, I guess, in Northampton, PA, Lehigh Valley area, but my dad was Air Force. So we moved around quite a lot. So I lived in six different states by the time I was nine. This is including Alaska, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, Missouri, and then New Jersey. Then, settled a little bit in a couple of places, but I've been all over the country.
Jackie Morreale (03:26)
New Jersey is how we know each other, right? Our pants overlapped in Jersey and we've since moved on. I'm so glad that they did and I got to know you at that point and that we're still in touch. I just tried to recap it but what do you do and what is your passion?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (03:34)
Me too. In terms of sports medicine, so my paid job, I'm a sports medicine physician. I also do occupational medicine and travel medicine at a company called Harley-Davidson Motor Company. I work there on site twice a week. I do remote work for them. It's a very flexible job. It’s an incredible position, and I really, really enjoy working there.
I get involved with the safety aspect of the plant and it's fascinating. So it's really been interesting to take all my knowledge from sports medicine, always working in orthopedic offices. This is really my first position in a very, different type of environment, which I absolutely love. I really enjoy going to work with my steel-toed shoes on and my black scrubs and Harley shirt and safety glasses.
I really enjoy learning about the process of how to put motorcycles together. Before I got this job, the main thing I was concerned about motorcycles is I did not want to hit them when I was driving on the road. That was my only concern and hoping that everyone is safe. Now I have a whole new appreciation and love for these amazing machines.
Jackie Morreale (04:34)
Yes, scary. Good for you. Do you ride? Have to ask.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (04:44)
No, I don't. Maybe one day. I'm at the plant where they build the motorcycles and I'm in the medical clinic that's there for the employees. Yeah. You mentioned about my passion. Honestly, I have a ton of passions. I have a ton of them, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time. But my number one passion is my family. So whatever is revolving around my family, obviously Vienna is a huge part of that. Of course sports medicine too, but things kind of shifted of course, after Vienna passed away. I still have my love of sports medicine, but it's definitely changed. Obviously, Vienna and the film and the nonprofit, my family being number one, are my main passions, and staying healthy too. That's really important too.
Jackie Morreale (05:11)
How many years have you been doing this? Whether we're talking about medicine or we're talking about the foundation, filmmaking?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (05:31)
Well, I graduated from medical school in 2004. So 2004. So I've been an actual physician for now 21 years, which is really hard to believe. It's incredible. In terms of nonprofit, so Vienna passed away in November 12, 2017. Then the nonprofit was officially incorporated on what should have been her fourth birthday, January 19, 2019. The nonprofit's been going strong for over six years. I know we'll get more into the film, but that's been an idea since COVID. So, five years.
Jackie Morreale (06:01)
Here it is, you've made it become a reality. Good for you. What is your favorite part of your role? I know you have so many different roles and passions and things going on in your life. What is your favorite part?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (06:04)
I think overall the commonality amongst everything is making a positive impact. Wherever that is, whether it's in my family's lives, especially our children's lives. My husband's already an adult, but still trying to make a positive impact for him, for me, for our family, but especially for our kids, since they're growing up. My two oldest, I wish Vienna was growing up too, but I do feel that she does watch us every day and so I also want to have a positive impact for her as well even though she's not here physically. I think everything that I do is always striving for that being positive and uplifting other people because that helps everybody. Uplifting other people also helps me too. It's a very symbiotic relationship, I would say as I look at the world.
Jackie Morreale (06:55)
You are such an inspiring human being, Denise, you really are. Unfortunately, our paths crossed and we have this common thing where we have both experienced this tragic loss. I'm so inspired by you and how you put your family first and everything that you do is to uplift others. It's just beautiful to see.
So yes, it is a symbiotic relationship. Lots of people are watching what you're doing and getting inspired by you. Thank you. I know it's not easy to talk about, but we're going to make it through. Let's keep it light. Let's go to some quick-fire questions.
As a filmmaker. What is your favorite movie of all time? It could be your own.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (07:30)
I was thinking about this. well, of course, this is, I mean, obviously, so of course, Vienna: Suddenly an Angel, absolutely my favorite film of all time. But outside of this, Into the Wild. Written by John Krakauer. It's a book about Christopher McCandless traveling to Alaska, passing away. Yes, but the film is incredible. One of my favorite books is Into the Wild as well.
Eddie Vedder did all the music. Sean Penn was the main guy for the film. Eddie Vedder, and I love Pearl Jam. I love Eddie Vedder's voice. For me, it is the perfect film because I love Alaska. Was there as a kid, went back five times, to see my sister who now lives in Montana, my oldest sister. It's such an amazing place. The film was set in pretty much one of my favorite places on earth, always makes it even more enjoyable to watch. Except the part when he dies, I don't like that part. But him just exploring. And I'm very comfortable with death. Unfortunately, since 2017, I'm sure you have very different relationship as well because of your brother.
I'm very comfortable with death, but I just didn't like to see it on the screen just for me. So now when I watch it again, I just pass that part. I like the fun part where he like he has eyes tearing up when he sees these caribou that are running, free in the Alaskan wilderness. I love that movie.
Jackie Morreale (08:35)
Right. Powerful. Do you feel like when you lived in Alaska that there was this calling to nature, like there is in that storyline or did it remind you of growing up or it's just something that's really well done and you love it?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (08:58)
Definitely well done and I love it for sure. But when I lived there as a kid, I was four, five and six years old. I do remember a lot of it because it was just a positive experience for my whole nuclear family from way back when I was little. Of course, we had a family of six. But then I went back because my oldest sister, Diane, stayed up there for another 15 years. I went back to see her and then I went back for a rotation in Dillingham. So she was mainly in Anchorage, which was South Central.
And I went to Dillingham, Alaska, Southwestern Alaska, which you can't drive there. It's only by boat or by plane. Can you get there? I was there for a month, Kanak-Kanak Hospital doing a rotation as a fourth year. Of course, I loved it. I tried everything I could in terms of the food, I tried moose and elk and just everything that they offered. I said, sure, I'll try it.
Jackie Morreale (09:31)
Why not? When in Dillingham.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (09:49)
People are so incredibly friendly and nice, and I just love the culture. That's a huge part of Alaska that I really love is the fact that it is a whole nother culture within our 50 United States. I love learning about it.
Jackie Morreale (09:58)
It sounds like you have a lot more movies to make on your horizon, just in my opinion, just from hearing that one story. But what is your favorite book of all time? I was going to say it could be one that you published or an article that you published as well.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (10:07)
Into the Wild. Well, the articles were before medical school and that was all scientific kind of stuff, which is interesting, but not my interest now. When I was in college, I really enjoyed this book called Siddhartha, actually. It goes into one of your next questions. My favorite topics in school, biology, of course, I was a biology major in pre-med, of course. That was always, always my love. I was taking the highest-level classes I could.
But then also surprisingly, I fell in love with this other course, Religions of India. It was one of those things. I went to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, and one of the requirements was you had to take at least one religion class. Yes, I was so thankful that that was a requirement, because otherwise I would have never taken this class, ever. It was one of those things where I remember sitting in class and just absorbing every single thing that Dr. Schwartz told us. I barely had to study for this class because it was just immediately absorbed into my brain. It was incredible. I have such a scientific mind and the fact that something that was so different really rung true with me. Then reading this book, Siddhartha, about Buddha and I grew up Catholic, I'm spiritual. I don't practice any particular religion currently, but I believe in God, not to get religious or anything, but it was just fascinating to me.
Then I read the book Siddhartha, one or two times after college. It was just a fascinating book about the Buddha. Surprising, but I really enjoy learning.
Jackie Morreale (11:43)
Yes. I don't know where I read this, but I read that religions are all branches on the same tree somewhere. I think there's something to be learned about yourself and about others and about all different belief systems. I think it's all part of a greater good. That's wonderful that that book rang true with you. I want to read it now.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:00)
Fascinating, because I really enjoy learning how other people think. It's fascinating to me. and yeah, religions are really interesting to me, too.
Jackie Morreale (12:10)
You've been and lived so many different places, do you have a favorite place in the world, Alaska?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:15)
Alaska. Of course, wherever my family is. That's number one. But Alaska is my favorite in the United States. There's so many places outside the US that I haven't traveled to. I've traveled to a handful or so. Of those, I love Brazil. I love Peru and Nepal. I was there for all different reasons. Europe is very interesting, too, with the history.
One day, we would love to go to Vienna, which I know we will. Of course, we wanted to go with Vienna, and show her how she was named. She was named, Vienna, after the capital of Austria, because that's my heritage.
Jackie Morreale (12:45)
I love that, I have family in Austria too. It's one of my favorite places. Vienna is one of my favorite places too. So clean, beautiful, just people are super friendly. I've never been to Alaska. So everything you described about Alaska to me is like the friends and family I have in Austria.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (12:48)
Really? Yes.
Jackie Morreale (13:02)
For sure, one day you and your family, I'm sure, will love to go and it'll be a really nice spiritual thing for you guys, to go visit. I didn't know the backstory, but now that I do, I love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:14)
Yes, thank you. I'm sure you and your family will go to Alaska too and I'm happy to help you determine where to go. So different whether you go to Anchorage or in the bush. I also went to Igiugig which is a small little Eskimo village when I did my rotation out there.
Jackie Morreale (13:18)
My gosh. Amazing. How do you even get medicine to the hospital? There's snow, there's ice, there's no roads. There are so many issues!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:36)
Yes, Alaska is a whole nother world, especially when it comes to medicine.
Jackie Morreale (13:38)
A whole nother world. We touched on favorite subject in school. I know that you're always taking super easy, biology classes and that's your favorite. And you took the religion class that really meant something to you. Anything else in terms of your favorite school subject or favorite things in school?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (13:56)
I really enjoyed Genetics in college. Medical school, I really enjoyed everything, because I knew it was for the goal. I was very driven. I always wanted to be a physician. I did take a tap dance class in college as part of my second semester senior year. Yeah, just for fun. I did all these tough classes. The second semester I took an acting class.
Jackie Morreale (14:08)
Did you really? Good for you. Well, now you're an actor, an award-winning actor. That totally makes sense to me.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (14:17)
For us, there's no scripts involved. Of course, Marko, the director, he had questions for us, but no, there really were no scripts. But back then I decided, I'll just take a class just for fun. I did acting for that semester and then I took a tap dance class, still have my tap shoes. Just fun stuff. I did take two high level biology classes, of course, but it was my second semester senior year. So, I said, let me cruise a little bit. Of course I played basketball in college too. So that was incredibly hectic and busy because there's always preseason.
Of course you play throughout, its covers both first and second semester. Then of course, if you go into playoffs. Pretty much my whole entire college experience involved basketball, and I still love that sport.
Jackie Morreale (14:54)
That is my next question. Do you have a favorite sport?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (15:04)
Yes, basketball, absolutely. I coach my kids' teams when they ask me. When they're in rec basketball.
Jackie Morreale (15:10)
They would be so lucky to have you. Wow, that's awesome.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (15:12)
I love it. I even coached the one team when my oldest daughter wasn't on the team. She was on the actual middle school team and they needed a coach. I said, absolutely, I love the game. Then, my oldest, sometimes she would assistant coach with me, but we just had a blast. I just really love the game. I feel there's a lot I can give, especially to young girls when it comes to the sport of basketball and what it can teach you in terms of leadership and working together as a team for the common goal. Being responsible, getting to practice on time, all these things that - I feel - every kid should know.
Jackie Morreale (15:42)
Yes. I’m convinced that you could do anything, Denise, really. I'm picturing you in tap dancing shoes, on stage, in film. You can do anything. You've published, you've presented internationally, you've lived all over. You're really breaking the mold. I'm very impressed by you. So who is your favorite filmmaker? And it can be you.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (16:06)
No, I definitely don't want to choose myself. No, no. But honestly, my team, my team. Because before this film experience, I didn't know really any true filmmakers when it comes to films out in the world. When we started this journey, three plus years ago.
Asking various people who I knew. When we lived in New Jersey, honestly, the reason I thought about a film was because someone had asked me during one of the many podcasts and interviews during the COVID time period, what's next for Team Vienna? What's next for your nonprofit Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness? One of the things I said was, I would like to do a film. I don't know what it looks like or what it would be like. It would be a true-life story.
With other actors regarding our family or some documentary. I really didn't know at that point. For the next couple of years, then I started brainstorming and just trying to think of, who do I already know who can potentially give me some light? Because I know absolutely nothing about creating a film. I don't even know where to start, but let me start picking the brains of people I know. I started making a little list in my head. It was a short list because I didn't know many people, but even people who are in video production.
Just something, not necessarily some big blockbuster film. Then I started talking to friends of mine and then friends of friends of mine, because people are incredible and wanted to connect me with other people. That's how it started the ball rolling. It wasn't until, so 2021, we dedicated a bench, at Cross Farm Park in Holmdel, New Jersey.
It was then the next year. So now we moved to Pennsylvania (PA) in 2021. The next year, we go back to the bench and we're doing a small gathering, family and friends, doing our international, Vienna's Day of International SUDC Awareness where all seven continents support every single year. It's really unbelievable how people are involved. So that's in May every year. So it's always the Saturday after Mother's Day, Mother's Day in the US, but the Saturday after Mother's Day.
Jackie Morreale (17:32)
When can we celebrate that day, Vienna's International Day?
I've seen these videos. That you have many contacts around the world is an understatement. You even have people supporting your 501c3 organization from Antarctica. You have people on every single continent. This is a worldwide movement to support what you're doing in memory of your daughter. It's amazing.
(Continued below)
Meet Denise and her family, behind Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness:
Dr. Denise Wunderler and her family on the red carpet at the New Hope Film Festival
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Dr. Denise Wunderler and her family at a Team Vienna event in Pennsylvania
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(Continued)
Dr. Denise Wunderler (18:13)
Crazy. People are amazing because people want to help. The initial time we did the Vienna's walk was in Jersey and it was for another organization. We weren't even a true nonprofit at the time. I said, let's just create a team called Team Vienna. Vienna died November, 2017.
The walk was May 2018, the walk and run and this race in Seabright, New Jersey at the beach. Then over 200 people showed up just for Team Vienna. That really gave me such a boost in confidence. Like, wow, it's not just my family who cares about what happened to my daughter and who cares about SUDC, Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood. That was the first year that four continents represented. I didn't even know that I had friends in Barcelona and South America and Nepal and Israel where people just sent me pictures. Like we're in Jersey, rainy, windy, cold day. All these people showed up.
I was shocked because it was really a tough day to be outside. And all these people were there with kids in strollers. Then completely soaked all my layers and we're hanging out afterwards. I'm going through my phone, I'm like, oh my gosh, here's a picture from Spain. Here's a picture from Columbia, South America. Here's a picture from Nepal. It was incredible.
So that gave me the idea like, hey, maybe one year we can do seven continents. It wasn't until then the following year, talked to a colleague of mine, I said, trying to get more attention and more awareness to SUDC. Since it's such a tough topic, it's death in children. It's horrendous. Who really wants to talk about that? But everything that I do, I try to make it interesting, in the best of my ability, and ideas from other people too. To make it fun, in light of such a horrible topic.
He said, Denise, I know somebody who was in Antarctica. It was like, Antarctica. So that year was the first year. He hooked me up. I talked to this physical therapist, talked to someone else who then was down there in Antarctica, or she was actually on her way there.
Then that's how it started. Now every single year they're passing the torch, now it's been consecutive six years now. The person who, she was a paramedic at the time, she was at the South Pole. That's when I did one of my international lectures, because I spoke virtually to the South Pole Medical Clinic in Antarctica.
Jackie Morreale (20:00)
Incredible. My goodness.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:22)
Yes, she was a paramedic at the time. Now she's a medical student at my medical school in Kansas City, Missouri, which is unbelievable.
Jackie Morreale (20:27)
Of course, because it's a big world, but it's a really small world. Isn't that incredible?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:31)
Right. She's the one who's now propagating, passing the torch down in Antarctica. Again, everyone has been helping in so many different ways. I wanted to get back to, now 2022, we're doing this walk. We're going to May Vienna's Day of International SUDC Awareness, close family and friends were doing this walk at the park, in Holmdel, New Jersey, Cross Farm Park, where Vienna's beautiful bench is, that Police Department fully funded by the way people there. The police.
Jackie Morreale (20:55)
Holmdel Police Department is amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:56)
Fantastic. Yes. We're still close with them. Two of the police officers they're in our film. So we were walking around that day, 2022. There's this guy who turned out to be Marko Albrecht, a director, producer, storyteller. He was there with his kids. He saw us walking around and just said hello. Then later he ended up talking to my husband, Mike. They're chatting and Marko said, I'm a filmmaker, producer, and my husband said, you need to talk to my wife, Denise. She wants to create a film. That was the first introduction. Then it was a little slow going. I was talking to other producers as well, but Marko was the best fit for what we were going to do. And I really liked his back.
Jackie Morreale (21:28)
And he was already there supporting your event and understood a little bit about it, no?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (21:35)
No, he wasn't there for us. No, he was there for soccer. Because it's where all the soccer fields are. He wasn't there for us at all. No. No, he was just intrigued. He saw all these pink roses. He saw the banners. He saw the handbags. know, handbags there.
Jackie Morreale (21:38)
So it's meant to be. You have had pop-up retail shops in Bell Works, very high-end collections of accessories.
In terms of you, yeah, as a creative, I know you make everything interesting. I've heard and seen you sing at academic presentations. You write music, you sing. You're such a talented force of nature.
Here you are, you came up with this concept, you wanted to do a documentary or film of some kind to tell your story and get it out there in this new medium in art and touch people in a different way. And it manifested less than two years later on a soccer field.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (22:25)
It's nuts. It's kind of crazy how things work out. I really do feel that Vienna is involved with all of it. I really do. Yeah, because she's why I do all of this stuff, to support her legacy. But also like one day we need to get answers of why in the world she fell asleep watching TV and stopped breathing and why still to this day now almost eight years later, we still do not have a cause for why this happened to her. Then also hearing it happens to all these other families, all these other kids. When it happened to us, we didn't know that there were others that had happened. We thought we were the only ones. We thought we were the only ones.
Jackie Morreale (22:54)
Well, how lucky is she and all these other families that you as the mom are also a D.O. and force of nature and creative and capable of figuring out the research that will make this change one day and is getting the word out in such a big way right now. I don't know why things happen, but it feels like there's a reason why you are part of this story.
I need to decompress. I'm sorry. This is a tough conversation, but let's have it though, because it's really important.
I want to hear more about the making of your beautiful movie, Vienna, Suddenly an Angel. So I know the story came as a result of your own family tragedy and the mission to spread awareness for SUDC. I know that you had this idea during COVID five years ago. Why a film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (23:45)
Because I felt that it was kind of the logical next step to do something bigger. And I feel like, especially with the nonprofit, I've been always very, very stingy with the donations. People have been so generous. So, so, so thankful for all the donations. We've given over $30,000 up to the Boston Children's Hospital Roberts Program for SUDC awareness or for SUDC research. I was so thankful that we were able to do that.
Jackie Morreale (24:07)
Amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (24:12)
Then when the film came up, we had specific fundraisers for that. It seemed like the logical next step because of course been very blessed to be able to do all these other things, and really tap into my creative side with others who have helped with that as well. It was really another way to tell her story.
I do these Grand Rounds lectures, and I've been doing them now since March 2019, and even hospitals have invited me back to speak. Princeton Medical Center, I spoke there twice because I spoke to one department for the regular Grand Rounds, and they said, we want this other department to also hear you speak. I've been brought back a good handful of times to different places, which has been reassuring to me that, I'm doing the right thing here. Let's face it, a lot of medical lectures, they're not very memorable. The fact that people ask me back made me think, okay, I'm doing some type of justice to this cause, to Vienna, to the other SUDC kids. It seems like maybe I'm doing something a little bit right here to get the word out to other physicians. We don't learn about SUDC in medical school.
You learn a little bit about SIDS, but really not even much about that either. Then SUDC, not at all. My husband and I both being physicians, never heard of this when it happened to us, floored us. That was really the big push to do something to get the word out. The nonprofit's been fantastic. Holmdel, NJ was a huge reason why it started off so successfully was because of the generosity and the time and talents of people from Holmdel, really. Then also from around the world who just wanted to support. So whether it's the handbags or charms or the billboards that were donated by Lamar, they're still running in Eastern Pennsylvania, by the way, third year donated. The metal hand that Jenkins Masheem in Pennsylvania, in Bethlehem, created from Vienna's last artwork so that I could put her hand in cement whenever we do our cement projects, whether it's at Vienna's little library here, we put all five of our hands in the cement, including Vienna's. Then at the bench.
Jackie Morreale (25:42)
Amazing. Wow.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (25:58)
Vienna's went in there with our other two children. People are just amazing. So with all these other things, it just seemed like a film would be the next logical step. My initial thought was, we have a lot to say, maybe an hour and a half. Then the more I talk to, it's like, do you want it to be an hour and a half? That's a very, very long film. We could fill it, but do we want to? Are people going to watch it? I'm going to watch it. My friends, my family, and other SUDC parents will watch it. But I want to inspire that 20-year-old who's in the corner of the auditorium who doesn't have their own children. How can I get that person to care about this? That's always in my head. The parents are going to care once they hear about it, if they know us, they're going to care. But it's that person in the corner who doesn't really have a true, true reason to care. Maybe they don't want to have any kids of their own. Maybe they would rather stay away from kids. Everyone has their own love.
Everyone doesn't love kids, but that was my thought. How can I get that person to care? When I give my lectures, I have the typical, medical objectives that you have to have for every lecture. But what I do say is, my main objective today is, I want you to care. I'm here to inspire you to care about this. That's the truth with everything I do.
Jackie Morreale (27:06)
I agree it's hard to get people to care if they can't empathize with what you've been going through. But the things that you have done to bring SUDC awareness out there and make people who, like you said, don't have kids or don't want to have kids or for whatever reason can't empathize, understand and care. And you have this 20-minute documentary film that's now being chosen by audiences to win. A lot of people care.
Right? You're connecting with people in new ways, and they didn't even know that they cared about this cause, right? Here they care a whole lot about it and about your daughter because of your message and your drive to get it out there. So why now? Because I know you started the process few years ago. You found your director.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (27:46)
So thankful for all of it. Really, so thankful.
Jackie Morreale (27:55)
It all just lined up. Why is it all lining up? Why 2025? Why is this the year for your film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (28:01)
That's a great question. Because this is the year of the film. It was completed in March 2025. Idea, yeah, more than five years ago. It's crazy. It was slow going to get us started. It was May 2022, met Marko, we stayed in touch. He had a timeline out for that fall. I remember saying to myself, my goodness, this is really happening. I don't know if I can do this right now. Like really, I kind of paused it. I was scared. I was kind of scared because now the opportunity is here. I said to myself, OK, if someone's going make a film, I feel with all the people I've ever met in my life and who have shown an interest in filmmaking, he's the guy. I feel confident in the team you would put together. Our team is small but mighty, I feel.
Then of course the Fall came and went and he's like, hey Denise, if you want to make a film, we have to film, have to do something about it. was January then, January 19th is Vienna's birthday. So we always go back to Holmdel, Bell Works, in Holmdel, they light their huge 60 foot tower pink since I asked. That's been now consecutive yearly tradition, as they say. I'm so thankful for them. Paola there is amazing. It's amazing. That's a huge awareness tool where people will drive past you. Usually, it's lit up beautifully white. But why this one day in January? It's pink. It's not Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's not October. It's January in the middle of winter. What's going on? So that's huge. It was January 19th and I said, Hey Marko, can you please film the tower going from white to pink? So, daytime to darkness.
Jackie Morreale (29:17)
Exactly.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (29:32)
This has been maybe the third or fourth year they did it. I had a video that I did that was just okay, but I really would like a professional version of this knowing that we're gonna create a film, maybe it would be nice to put this in the film. That part is actually in the film itself and it's gorgeous, how it changes colors and just gorgeous from daytime to nighttime and to daytime again. We did our first filming and he's like, Denise, if we're going to do this, we need to start filming.
That's when 2023 was the big year for filming actually on location in a lot in Jersey, but then also in PA and then up in Boston, in the research lab actually. Then January 2024, we had one of the first cuts. This is film lingo that I learned. We had a private screening on a snowy, snowy day on Vienna's birthday, January 19th, 2024, right in Hazlet there at the Cinemark Theater. 85 people who said they could come, all in snow and everything. Schools were closed in PA and Jersey and all this snow and 65 people showed up that day. I was amazed. They're all family and friends, of course, to support. That was the first cut. The film changed so drastically since that.
It's so different. It's amazing how it kind of evolves in different cuts. Let's see, 2024, we got into the Garden State Film Festival and there was still a piece that needed to be added. We talked about it and for whatever reason we didn't, and it was her medical history of having febrile seizures. That's where if you have a fever, potentially, the child can have a seizure.
So, she had four of these. We didn't include that in the film because the goal of the film kind of changed a little bit. I said, this really, really needs to be in the film. Then we finally got it in and that definitely brought an increase in the medical and the scientific aspect of it. We have Boston Children's and that's huge. That's very scientific, because they're talking about their incredible research there. But also, you see me as a speaker. It brings more depth to the film where it's not only about awareness, and about our story, but also moving forward, hope, the scientific aspect of it, the research aspect of it. It has a lot of different facets.
It's a 20-minute powerful film that was created amazingly by our small team. Every second counts. There is no dead space in this film. Every single second counts. From what I've seen, people have all different reactions to this in terms of their emotions. It's all positive feedback. People have been very touched. They'll shed tears, they'll laugh, they'll smile, they'll feel inspired. I really enjoy when people tell me their feedback because that's the goal. We want all those things.
You didn't ask, What would you kind of want to gain from the film in terms of putting it out there? Of course, all the awareness, the education, getting this out in front of people's eyes who otherwise may never have seen this. Not everyone's going to go to my physician Grand Rounds talk. Not everyone is going to come do a walk. Not everyone's going to buy a handbag or a t-shirt or whatever. But it's these storytellers. Getting the word out to these storytellers. People go to film festivals and increasing awareness that way.
It's been quite a journey.
Jackie Morreale (32:23)
I can only imagine. If we're thinking objectively about you as a filmmaker and this film, which I know really touches your heart in so many ways, do you have a particular moment or scene from the film that would be one of your favorites?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (32:37)
I'd say, all the scenes are my favorite. All of them. If you ask Marko, the director, producer also, I sent them so many pictures and video, but of course it was never really going to be an hour and a half. That's just way too long of a time period. No one's going to watch it. Maybe if Francis Ford Coppola makes the film or, one of those very, very famous directors, then I'm sure they would watch it.
Jackie Morreale (32:57)
It could go from 20-minute short documentary film to full feature. Why not? It's what can you come up with? What can you dream up, Denise? Because whatever you dream up becomes reality. It's true.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (33:04)
Well, if Mr. Coppola wants to do this or Mr. Scorsese, Mr. Howard. Please, I'd be more than happy. What was your original question?
Jackie Morreale (33:14)
Yes, putting out a call. If Mr. Ron Howard is interested in promoting SUDC awareness, yes.
What was your favorite moment or scene in the film, if you have, or you said Marko may have, the director may have?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (33:28)
I love all of them. Sending all these home videos to Marko and Cory O'Neill who did an amazing job editing. Alexander Burke is our cinematographer. I love all of them. I sent so many of them because I know to me, and you too as a mom, you're gonna love all these videos of your kids. It is, it is. It’s hard, it's hard to choose.
I said, you guys looking from the outside in, then becoming an insider, obviously. But initially from the outside in, looking at our story, looking at all of these videos of Vienna and our family, which do you feel are most impactful? That's why I sent them a lot. What happened was, I'm sending him all these videos. Again, wasn't sure how personal I wanted to get, because this is our family.
This is a very, very tragic thing that happened to us. It's incredibly personal. You how much do I really want to share? By accident, I sent him a video clip that ended up in the film. By accident. it was very important. I'm so glad now that it's in the film, but number one, do not remember sending him that video clip of, of me in the hospital with Vienna.
Jackie Morreale (34:21)
It's so hard to put yourself out there. Especially you're talking about sending your birth video with your beautiful baby, right? But those are the things that really touch people, because it's just so truthful, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (34:46)
Exactly. You can't make this stuff up. That's real life. It wasn't when I was giving birth, but it was like two days old or so when our other two older ones met her for the first time. It was quite a moment, I'm so glad that it's in there, but it was not intentional. I think maybe if Vienna said, Mom, you need to put this in the film.
Jackie Morreale (34:50)
I completely agree. She's leading you and there with you the whole way. I think you already answered this, but if you were to just come up with one take home message that you would like all of your audience members to receive while watching this film, what would it be?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (35:16)
I wore this shirt on purpose. This is one of the shirts that I created for Vienna.
Jackie Morreale (35:18)
I love it! Motivated, determined, hopeful, inspired, driven, educated, Vienna.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (35:26)
These are all the things that I would like people to feel when they're finished, during the film, after the film. I want them to feel inspired, motivated, determined to do something, whether it's about SUDC or some other cause that they feel strong and passionate about. I want them to feel educated after the film. I want them to feel driven. I want them to feel hopeful because in our film, it is sad. We all know that Vienna passes away. That's not a mystery.
Why she died is a mystery, that's part of the film. But I want people, especially families who have lost whether it's a child or a brother or a sister or a parent, that this is one family's example of how to navigate grief. I think it's an inspiring film. It's our grief journey. As you know, not everybody's grief journey is the same, nor will they ever be the same. It changes constantly.
It's a story of loss, but then also of love and resilience and having essentially going from local grief to worldwide awareness of this SUDC thing that barely anybody has heard of. But the word is finally getting out. Those are definitely the main take homes. Also, SIDS doesn't end at one. This is interesting too. I just learned this, Jackie, a couple months ago.
Trying to read up. I do these lectures for multiple reasons, to educate, and especially the new physicians with medical students, residents, attending physicians. But also it forces me, because I'm so busy, there's so many things going on. It forces me to look in the literature again, and oh, is there a new paper? Is there something that I need to look into here? It forces me to do that. If I wouldn't do these lectures,
I would look, but not as frequently and life gets busy. So it forces me to do that. I have to make sure I'm up on the latest, the best I can. I do my best. It's not always perfect, but I do my best. Recently I learned that more than 30 years ago, SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, crib death, cot death, people call it different things. That included kids, toddlers as well.
Not just below one year old. I was floored. I didn't know this. How high the age is? I don't know, but I know that it was definitely the toddlers. For SUDC, the highest incidence are the toddlers, one to four years old. So SUDC is one to 18. The toddlers is the highest, one to four years old. Then it jumps up 15 to 18 years old. Second highest incidence, looking at the data that we have.
Then the middle, adolescents, those are the lowest incidence. But toddlers, 55%, 60 % of these SUDC kids are toddlers. Now more than 30 years ago, those toddlers were included in what was called SIDS, until someone changed the definition, maybe 25, 30 years ago, maybe 1990, even when they started the Back to Sleep program. That was in the 90s. Putting the baby back on their back to sleep.
Jackie Morreale (38:18)
Which is still is in full effect today.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (38:38)
So they changed the definition to only include babies less than one. So now all those toddlers who passed away, who people knew they passed away, kind of got lost in the shuffle. Now there's no term to define those kids. They knew SIDS less than one.
In the world of medicine, there's an ICD code for every single medical ailment. There's one for SIDS. There's still not one for SUDC. It just flabbergasted me how, wow, these kids were included. Vienna would have included, Brody, Nora, all these other kids, Jordan.
Jackie Morreale (38:52)
Wow, give them names, it just hurts.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (38:55)
Yeah. They were live kids who were healthy. These are live families now who are trying to deal with this grief. Just knowing that, wow, I couldn't believe that those kids’ kind of got lost in the dust. They got lost in the dust, until 2005, and was the first paper that defined SUDC in the literature was to my knowledge was 2005. That's only 20 years ago. Yeah, so for a good, what, 15 years or more, those young toddlers were not categorized anywhere. I learned that recently.
Jackie Morreale (39:22)
How tragic for their families. You're really pioneering, it sounds like. It's not a new thing, but just the categorization that's been declared, pretty recently.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (39:33)
Yeah, it's nuts. Dr. Goldstein, he's been involved for such a long time too. He and Dr. Kinney, Dr. Kinney retired. She's a neuropathologist. She looked in the tissues of the brain, but Dr. Goldstein, he's still going strong. He's amazing. He's a palliative pediatrician by training. that initially Boston Children's Hospital, yes. Yeah. He's the main physical investigator of that study of the Roberts Program at Boston Children's.
To be a palliative pediatrician, you have to have an amazing soul, amazing heart. He's a very special person to do that type of job. He's the one who's the principal investigator of this. He's amazing. I've met him now a handful of times, filming and then also going up to Boston and going to their events.
Jackie Morreale (40:00)
If I feel all the things on your t-shirt, motivated, driven, inspired, all those things, I want to help. What do I do next?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (40:21)
Well, besides talking with me, anybody can go to our website and there is a tab that says how to help. One thing I have a hard time doing is asking people for funding. So I don't typically. That's not good because then, less funds, but people tend to then pick it up and have fundraisers, or donate, they feel moved by something. Maybe one day, the film will be public after the film festival run. Then people will feel inspired to donate. So of course, donating.
(Continued below)
Dr. Denise Wunderler (18:13)
Crazy. People are amazing because people want to help. The initial time we did the Vienna's walk was in Jersey and it was for another organization. We weren't even a true nonprofit at the time. I said, let's just create a team called Team Vienna. Vienna died November, 2017.
The walk was May 2018, the walk and run and this race in Seabright, New Jersey at the beach. Then over 200 people showed up just for Team Vienna. That really gave me such a boost in confidence. Like, wow, it's not just my family who cares about what happened to my daughter and who cares about SUDC, Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood. That was the first year that four continents represented. I didn't even know that I had friends in Barcelona and South America and Nepal and Israel where people just sent me pictures. Like we're in Jersey, rainy, windy, cold day. All these people showed up.
I was shocked because it was really a tough day to be outside. And all these people were there with kids in strollers. Then completely soaked all my layers and we're hanging out afterwards. I'm going through my phone, I'm like, oh my gosh, here's a picture from Spain. Here's a picture from Columbia, South America. Here's a picture from Nepal. It was incredible.
So that gave me the idea like, hey, maybe one year we can do seven continents. It wasn't until then the following year, talked to a colleague of mine, I said, trying to get more attention and more awareness to SUDC. Since it's such a tough topic, it's death in children. It's horrendous. Who really wants to talk about that? But everything that I do, I try to make it interesting, in the best of my ability, and ideas from other people too. To make it fun, in light of such a horrible topic.
He said, Denise, I know somebody who was in Antarctica. It was like, Antarctica. So that year was the first year. He hooked me up. I talked to this physical therapist, talked to someone else who then was down there in Antarctica, or she was actually on her way there.
Then that's how it started. Now every single year they're passing the torch, now it's been consecutive six years now. The person who, she was a paramedic at the time, she was at the South Pole. That's when I did one of my international lectures, because I spoke virtually to the South Pole Medical Clinic in Antarctica.
Jackie Morreale (20:00)
Incredible. My goodness.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:22)
Yes, she was a paramedic at the time. Now she's a medical student at my medical school in Kansas City, Missouri, which is unbelievable.
Jackie Morreale (20:27)
Of course, because it's a big world, but it's a really small world. Isn't that incredible?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:31)
Right. She's the one who's now propagating, passing the torch down in Antarctica. Again, everyone has been helping in so many different ways. I wanted to get back to, now 2022, we're doing this walk. We're going to May Vienna's Day of International SUDC Awareness, close family and friends were doing this walk at the park, in Holmdel, New Jersey, Cross Farm Park, where Vienna's beautiful bench is, that Police Department fully funded by the way people there. The police.
Jackie Morreale (20:55)
Holmdel Police Department is amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (20:56)
Fantastic. Yes. We're still close with them. Two of the police officers they're in our film. So we were walking around that day, 2022. There's this guy who turned out to be Marko Albrecht, a director, producer, storyteller. He was there with his kids. He saw us walking around and just said hello. Then later he ended up talking to my husband, Mike. They're chatting and Marko said, I'm a filmmaker, producer, and my husband said, you need to talk to my wife, Denise. She wants to create a film. That was the first introduction. Then it was a little slow going. I was talking to other producers as well, but Marko was the best fit for what we were going to do. And I really liked his back.
Jackie Morreale (21:28)
And he was already there supporting your event and understood a little bit about it, no?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (21:35)
No, he wasn't there for us. No, he was there for soccer. Because it's where all the soccer fields are. He wasn't there for us at all. No. No, he was just intrigued. He saw all these pink roses. He saw the banners. He saw the handbags. know, handbags there.
Jackie Morreale (21:38)
So it's meant to be. You have had pop-up retail shops in Bell Works, very high-end collections of accessories.
In terms of you, yeah, as a creative, I know you make everything interesting. I've heard and seen you sing at academic presentations. You write music, you sing. You're such a talented force of nature.
Here you are, you came up with this concept, you wanted to do a documentary or film of some kind to tell your story and get it out there in this new medium in art and touch people in a different way. And it manifested less than two years later on a soccer field.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (22:25)
It's nuts. It's kind of crazy how things work out. I really do feel that Vienna is involved with all of it. I really do. Yeah, because she's why I do all of this stuff, to support her legacy. But also like one day we need to get answers of why in the world she fell asleep watching TV and stopped breathing and why still to this day now almost eight years later, we still do not have a cause for why this happened to her. Then also hearing it happens to all these other families, all these other kids. When it happened to us, we didn't know that there were others that had happened. We thought we were the only ones. We thought we were the only ones.
Jackie Morreale (22:54)
Well, how lucky is she and all these other families that you as the mom are also a D.O. and force of nature and creative and capable of figuring out the research that will make this change one day and is getting the word out in such a big way right now. I don't know why things happen, but it feels like there's a reason why you are part of this story.
I need to decompress. I'm sorry. This is a tough conversation, but let's have it though, because it's really important.
I want to hear more about the making of your beautiful movie, Vienna, Suddenly an Angel. So I know the story came as a result of your own family tragedy and the mission to spread awareness for SUDC. I know that you had this idea during COVID five years ago. Why a film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (23:45)
Because I felt that it was kind of the logical next step to do something bigger. And I feel like, especially with the nonprofit, I've been always very, very stingy with the donations. People have been so generous. So, so, so thankful for all the donations. We've given over $30,000 up to the Boston Children's Hospital Roberts Program for SUDC awareness or for SUDC research. I was so thankful that we were able to do that.
Jackie Morreale (24:07)
Amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (24:12)
Then when the film came up, we had specific fundraisers for that. It seemed like the logical next step because of course been very blessed to be able to do all these other things, and really tap into my creative side with others who have helped with that as well. It was really another way to tell her story.
I do these Grand Rounds lectures, and I've been doing them now since March 2019, and even hospitals have invited me back to speak. Princeton Medical Center, I spoke there twice because I spoke to one department for the regular Grand Rounds, and they said, we want this other department to also hear you speak. I've been brought back a good handful of times to different places, which has been reassuring to me that, I'm doing the right thing here. Let's face it, a lot of medical lectures, they're not very memorable. The fact that people ask me back made me think, okay, I'm doing some type of justice to this cause, to Vienna, to the other SUDC kids. It seems like maybe I'm doing something a little bit right here to get the word out to other physicians. We don't learn about SUDC in medical school.
You learn a little bit about SIDS, but really not even much about that either. Then SUDC, not at all. My husband and I both being physicians, never heard of this when it happened to us, floored us. That was really the big push to do something to get the word out. The nonprofit's been fantastic. Holmdel, NJ was a huge reason why it started off so successfully was because of the generosity and the time and talents of people from Holmdel, really. Then also from around the world who just wanted to support. So whether it's the handbags or charms or the billboards that were donated by Lamar, they're still running in Eastern Pennsylvania, by the way, third year donated. The metal hand that Jenkins Masheem in Pennsylvania, in Bethlehem, created from Vienna's last artwork so that I could put her hand in cement whenever we do our cement projects, whether it's at Vienna's little library here, we put all five of our hands in the cement, including Vienna's. Then at the bench.
Jackie Morreale (25:42)
Amazing. Wow.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (25:58)
Vienna's went in there with our other two children. People are just amazing. So with all these other things, it just seemed like a film would be the next logical step. My initial thought was, we have a lot to say, maybe an hour and a half. Then the more I talk to, it's like, do you want it to be an hour and a half? That's a very, very long film. We could fill it, but do we want to? Are people going to watch it? I'm going to watch it. My friends, my family, and other SUDC parents will watch it. But I want to inspire that 20-year-old who's in the corner of the auditorium who doesn't have their own children. How can I get that person to care about this? That's always in my head. The parents are going to care once they hear about it, if they know us, they're going to care. But it's that person in the corner who doesn't really have a true, true reason to care. Maybe they don't want to have any kids of their own. Maybe they would rather stay away from kids. Everyone has their own love.
Everyone doesn't love kids, but that was my thought. How can I get that person to care? When I give my lectures, I have the typical, medical objectives that you have to have for every lecture. But what I do say is, my main objective today is, I want you to care. I'm here to inspire you to care about this. That's the truth with everything I do.
Jackie Morreale (27:06)
I agree it's hard to get people to care if they can't empathize with what you've been going through. But the things that you have done to bring SUDC awareness out there and make people who, like you said, don't have kids or don't want to have kids or for whatever reason can't empathize, understand and care. And you have this 20-minute documentary film that's now being chosen by audiences to win. A lot of people care.
Right? You're connecting with people in new ways, and they didn't even know that they cared about this cause, right? Here they care a whole lot about it and about your daughter because of your message and your drive to get it out there. So why now? Because I know you started the process few years ago. You found your director.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (27:46)
So thankful for all of it. Really, so thankful.
Jackie Morreale (27:55)
It all just lined up. Why is it all lining up? Why 2025? Why is this the year for your film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (28:01)
That's a great question. Because this is the year of the film. It was completed in March 2025. Idea, yeah, more than five years ago. It's crazy. It was slow going to get us started. It was May 2022, met Marko, we stayed in touch. He had a timeline out for that fall. I remember saying to myself, my goodness, this is really happening. I don't know if I can do this right now. Like really, I kind of paused it. I was scared. I was kind of scared because now the opportunity is here. I said to myself, OK, if someone's going make a film, I feel with all the people I've ever met in my life and who have shown an interest in filmmaking, he's the guy. I feel confident in the team you would put together. Our team is small but mighty, I feel.
Then of course the Fall came and went and he's like, hey Denise, if you want to make a film, we have to film, have to do something about it. was January then, January 19th is Vienna's birthday. So we always go back to Holmdel, Bell Works, in Holmdel, they light their huge 60 foot tower pink since I asked. That's been now consecutive yearly tradition, as they say. I'm so thankful for them. Paola there is amazing. It's amazing. That's a huge awareness tool where people will drive past you. Usually, it's lit up beautifully white. But why this one day in January? It's pink. It's not Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's not October. It's January in the middle of winter. What's going on? So that's huge. It was January 19th and I said, Hey Marko, can you please film the tower going from white to pink? So, daytime to darkness.
Jackie Morreale (29:17)
Exactly.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (29:32)
This has been maybe the third or fourth year they did it. I had a video that I did that was just okay, but I really would like a professional version of this knowing that we're gonna create a film, maybe it would be nice to put this in the film. That part is actually in the film itself and it's gorgeous, how it changes colors and just gorgeous from daytime to nighttime and to daytime again. We did our first filming and he's like, Denise, if we're going to do this, we need to start filming.
That's when 2023 was the big year for filming actually on location in a lot in Jersey, but then also in PA and then up in Boston, in the research lab actually. Then January 2024, we had one of the first cuts. This is film lingo that I learned. We had a private screening on a snowy, snowy day on Vienna's birthday, January 19th, 2024, right in Hazlet there at the Cinemark Theater. 85 people who said they could come, all in snow and everything. Schools were closed in PA and Jersey and all this snow and 65 people showed up that day. I was amazed. They're all family and friends, of course, to support. That was the first cut. The film changed so drastically since that.
It's so different. It's amazing how it kind of evolves in different cuts. Let's see, 2024, we got into the Garden State Film Festival and there was still a piece that needed to be added. We talked about it and for whatever reason we didn't, and it was her medical history of having febrile seizures. That's where if you have a fever, potentially, the child can have a seizure.
So, she had four of these. We didn't include that in the film because the goal of the film kind of changed a little bit. I said, this really, really needs to be in the film. Then we finally got it in and that definitely brought an increase in the medical and the scientific aspect of it. We have Boston Children's and that's huge. That's very scientific, because they're talking about their incredible research there. But also, you see me as a speaker. It brings more depth to the film where it's not only about awareness, and about our story, but also moving forward, hope, the scientific aspect of it, the research aspect of it. It has a lot of different facets.
It's a 20-minute powerful film that was created amazingly by our small team. Every second counts. There is no dead space in this film. Every single second counts. From what I've seen, people have all different reactions to this in terms of their emotions. It's all positive feedback. People have been very touched. They'll shed tears, they'll laugh, they'll smile, they'll feel inspired. I really enjoy when people tell me their feedback because that's the goal. We want all those things.
You didn't ask, What would you kind of want to gain from the film in terms of putting it out there? Of course, all the awareness, the education, getting this out in front of people's eyes who otherwise may never have seen this. Not everyone's going to go to my physician Grand Rounds talk. Not everyone is going to come do a walk. Not everyone's going to buy a handbag or a t-shirt or whatever. But it's these storytellers. Getting the word out to these storytellers. People go to film festivals and increasing awareness that way.
It's been quite a journey.
Jackie Morreale (32:23)
I can only imagine. If we're thinking objectively about you as a filmmaker and this film, which I know really touches your heart in so many ways, do you have a particular moment or scene from the film that would be one of your favorites?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (32:37)
I'd say, all the scenes are my favorite. All of them. If you ask Marko, the director, producer also, I sent them so many pictures and video, but of course it was never really going to be an hour and a half. That's just way too long of a time period. No one's going to watch it. Maybe if Francis Ford Coppola makes the film or, one of those very, very famous directors, then I'm sure they would watch it.
Jackie Morreale (32:57)
It could go from 20-minute short documentary film to full feature. Why not? It's what can you come up with? What can you dream up, Denise? Because whatever you dream up becomes reality. It's true.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (33:04)
Well, if Mr. Coppola wants to do this or Mr. Scorsese, Mr. Howard. Please, I'd be more than happy. What was your original question?
Jackie Morreale (33:14)
Yes, putting out a call. If Mr. Ron Howard is interested in promoting SUDC awareness, yes.
What was your favorite moment or scene in the film, if you have, or you said Marko may have, the director may have?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (33:28)
I love all of them. Sending all these home videos to Marko and Cory O'Neill who did an amazing job editing. Alexander Burke is our cinematographer. I love all of them. I sent so many of them because I know to me, and you too as a mom, you're gonna love all these videos of your kids. It is, it is. It’s hard, it's hard to choose.
I said, you guys looking from the outside in, then becoming an insider, obviously. But initially from the outside in, looking at our story, looking at all of these videos of Vienna and our family, which do you feel are most impactful? That's why I sent them a lot. What happened was, I'm sending him all these videos. Again, wasn't sure how personal I wanted to get, because this is our family.
This is a very, very tragic thing that happened to us. It's incredibly personal. You how much do I really want to share? By accident, I sent him a video clip that ended up in the film. By accident. it was very important. I'm so glad now that it's in the film, but number one, do not remember sending him that video clip of, of me in the hospital with Vienna.
Jackie Morreale (34:21)
It's so hard to put yourself out there. Especially you're talking about sending your birth video with your beautiful baby, right? But those are the things that really touch people, because it's just so truthful, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (34:46)
Exactly. You can't make this stuff up. That's real life. It wasn't when I was giving birth, but it was like two days old or so when our other two older ones met her for the first time. It was quite a moment, I'm so glad that it's in there, but it was not intentional. I think maybe if Vienna said, Mom, you need to put this in the film.
Jackie Morreale (34:50)
I completely agree. She's leading you and there with you the whole way. I think you already answered this, but if you were to just come up with one take home message that you would like all of your audience members to receive while watching this film, what would it be?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (35:16)
I wore this shirt on purpose. This is one of the shirts that I created for Vienna.
Jackie Morreale (35:18)
I love it! Motivated, determined, hopeful, inspired, driven, educated, Vienna.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (35:26)
These are all the things that I would like people to feel when they're finished, during the film, after the film. I want them to feel inspired, motivated, determined to do something, whether it's about SUDC or some other cause that they feel strong and passionate about. I want them to feel educated after the film. I want them to feel driven. I want them to feel hopeful because in our film, it is sad. We all know that Vienna passes away. That's not a mystery.
Why she died is a mystery, that's part of the film. But I want people, especially families who have lost whether it's a child or a brother or a sister or a parent, that this is one family's example of how to navigate grief. I think it's an inspiring film. It's our grief journey. As you know, not everybody's grief journey is the same, nor will they ever be the same. It changes constantly.
It's a story of loss, but then also of love and resilience and having essentially going from local grief to worldwide awareness of this SUDC thing that barely anybody has heard of. But the word is finally getting out. Those are definitely the main take homes. Also, SIDS doesn't end at one. This is interesting too. I just learned this, Jackie, a couple months ago.
Trying to read up. I do these lectures for multiple reasons, to educate, and especially the new physicians with medical students, residents, attending physicians. But also it forces me, because I'm so busy, there's so many things going on. It forces me to look in the literature again, and oh, is there a new paper? Is there something that I need to look into here? It forces me to do that. If I wouldn't do these lectures,
I would look, but not as frequently and life gets busy. So it forces me to do that. I have to make sure I'm up on the latest, the best I can. I do my best. It's not always perfect, but I do my best. Recently I learned that more than 30 years ago, SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, crib death, cot death, people call it different things. That included kids, toddlers as well.
Not just below one year old. I was floored. I didn't know this. How high the age is? I don't know, but I know that it was definitely the toddlers. For SUDC, the highest incidence are the toddlers, one to four years old. So SUDC is one to 18. The toddlers is the highest, one to four years old. Then it jumps up 15 to 18 years old. Second highest incidence, looking at the data that we have.
Then the middle, adolescents, those are the lowest incidence. But toddlers, 55%, 60 % of these SUDC kids are toddlers. Now more than 30 years ago, those toddlers were included in what was called SIDS, until someone changed the definition, maybe 25, 30 years ago, maybe 1990, even when they started the Back to Sleep program. That was in the 90s. Putting the baby back on their back to sleep.
Jackie Morreale (38:18)
Which is still is in full effect today.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (38:38)
So they changed the definition to only include babies less than one. So now all those toddlers who passed away, who people knew they passed away, kind of got lost in the shuffle. Now there's no term to define those kids. They knew SIDS less than one.
In the world of medicine, there's an ICD code for every single medical ailment. There's one for SIDS. There's still not one for SUDC. It just flabbergasted me how, wow, these kids were included. Vienna would have included, Brody, Nora, all these other kids, Jordan.
Jackie Morreale (38:52)
Wow, give them names, it just hurts.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (38:55)
Yeah. They were live kids who were healthy. These are live families now who are trying to deal with this grief. Just knowing that, wow, I couldn't believe that those kids’ kind of got lost in the dust. They got lost in the dust, until 2005, and was the first paper that defined SUDC in the literature was to my knowledge was 2005. That's only 20 years ago. Yeah, so for a good, what, 15 years or more, those young toddlers were not categorized anywhere. I learned that recently.
Jackie Morreale (39:22)
How tragic for their families. You're really pioneering, it sounds like. It's not a new thing, but just the categorization that's been declared, pretty recently.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (39:33)
Yeah, it's nuts. Dr. Goldstein, he's been involved for such a long time too. He and Dr. Kinney, Dr. Kinney retired. She's a neuropathologist. She looked in the tissues of the brain, but Dr. Goldstein, he's still going strong. He's amazing. He's a palliative pediatrician by training. that initially Boston Children's Hospital, yes. Yeah. He's the main physical investigator of that study of the Roberts Program at Boston Children's.
To be a palliative pediatrician, you have to have an amazing soul, amazing heart. He's a very special person to do that type of job. He's the one who's the principal investigator of this. He's amazing. I've met him now a handful of times, filming and then also going up to Boston and going to their events.
Jackie Morreale (40:00)
If I feel all the things on your t-shirt, motivated, driven, inspired, all those things, I want to help. What do I do next?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (40:21)
Well, besides talking with me, anybody can go to our website and there is a tab that says how to help. One thing I have a hard time doing is asking people for funding. So I don't typically. That's not good because then, less funds, but people tend to then pick it up and have fundraisers, or donate, they feel moved by something. Maybe one day, the film will be public after the film festival run. Then people will feel inspired to donate. So of course, donating.
(Continued below)
Dr. Denise Wunderler on the film festival community:
"The support I have felt at all the film festivals to date, those three, it's hard to even put into words. It was so easy to strike up conversations with people because they're all filmmakers, and they all have a passion for storytelling. They wanted to learn about Vienna's story."
Awards and Recognition for the new documentary film, Vienna: Suddenly An Angel:
(Continued)
Jackie Morreale (40:39)
What amount would make a difference?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (40:51)
A dollar, five dollars. When people pool their money, that's how we donated over $30,000 to Boston Children's. It wasn't people donating $20,000, $10,000. It was $5, $20, maybe $100, maybe $500 sometimes. Really, it was all this money that was pooled together. People together is a very powerful thing. It's very, very powerful force.
That's definitely one thing. If people want to donate to the awareness and education. Our three things, are awareness, education, and supporting the research. We also support families as well. It's not in our actual definition, but of course we do whatever we can do to help. People can donate directly to the research at Boston Children's Hospital. That's on our website in addition to then to us directly.
Buying a t-shirt is huge. I have maybe five or six different shirts now on the website, getting a charm. This is one of the things that I designed is the V-Halo charm. I have it trademarked also. Start off with the little charms as earrings and then to the medium size, which yeah, so this is like a little, this side. Then this went into a lapel pin because I spoke at the West Virginia Osteopathic Medical School a weeks ago and they said, any ideas? They said, yes, how about a lapel pin for a white coat? I'm like, perfect. I just sent the first student who told me this, the potential design today. I said, I want you to be the first one to see it.
Jackie Morreale (42:12)
Every lab jacket should have one on it. And jacket in general, it's beautiful. I love the idea. Great ideas can come from anywhere, anyone, and that's amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (42:17)
Thank you. It is their idea. All these things help draw attention to it. When we did the handbags, whether someone would buy a handbag and it spurs conversation. Having a charm. The Gravel Hill Church, they had a motorcycle ride last weekend, for a nonprofit.
Then the local American Legion, they spearheaded it also and led it so that every rider received one of these large charms. They're putting them on their jackets. I'm like, my gosh, like here's an amazing biker jacket. And it has a Vienna charm on there. It was just so touching. People do all these things and if they get a t-shirt, people will ask questions. I think this is really a powerful way for people to get involved, just buying a t-shirt.
Then they don't even have to say anything because this is not something that everybody really wants to talk about, but can still help the cause by wearing a shirt and having people look at the shirt. Last weekend, we were interviewed by the local news station for the motorcycle ride, and the person from the church who was one of the two who spearheaded it. Of course, I'm always wearing something regarding Vienna, some type of shirt.
She saw my shirt. She knew me from coaching, it's all volunteer, like her husband coaches, I coach, so we see each other in basketball court, like didn't really know each other.
Jackie Morreale (43:30)
I mean, you're being so humble right now, Denise. Your face is everywhere. You're on a big screen. I've seen you every time I opened my computer for the past few months. I'm so happy and proud of you. I know that this isn't necessarily what you had in mind, in life. Everybody knows you at this point.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (43:44)
I want people to know Vienna. People can forget my name. I tell the medical students, when you talk about this lecture, you can forget my name. Say, hey, Vienna's mom, who's the doctor, told me about SUDC. Thank you. She saw my shirt. We're picking kids up from track or basketball or saw me on the court or whatever.
Jackie Morreale (43:51)
Well, Vienna's mom is so humble and great. So I really love that. Thank you.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (44:14)
And so, she, because of my shirt, looked it up. Cause she never met me directly. She kind of knew me from afar. But, looked it up and then she's like, my goodness. I can't believe this happened. I just learned that last weekend. I was so touched and moved and humbled that, wow, I'm hoping that a lot of people do that. Even without speaking, you see the shirt, Hey, let me look up: www.vienna.team
Let's see, what's this all about? I see it on a billboard. I saw the shirt. Oh yeah, the 15-year-old is wearing this type of shirt at school. What's this all about?
Jackie Morreale (44:43)
It's a combination of different things, right? And then one of them clicks and some, then somebody, you know, takes the step of clicking or going to the website and my gosh, the website's great and so informative and has the articles with the research and has the ways to help and donate and do something.
There's just so much there. So, I agree. www.vienna.team is such an amazing resource for anybody looking to learn more. Great job.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (45:12)
Thank you, I appreciate that. And it's a team who put this all together. Lauren Farrell, she lives in Jersey. We put these bags together. I learned a lot from her too. She's an entrepreneur. She has all these incredible, amazing ideas. I remember her telling me once, because we did the pop-up shop at Bell Works, did the handbags and all of her amazing handbags themselves, and then included the Vienna collection, of course.
The inside's always hot pink, no matter what the outside looks like with the big V on it. One thing that she taught me, so I learned a lot from her and being the entrepreneur and just such a creative mind, said, Denise, people need to see, I forget what the magic number, for some reason seven, six in my head, it could have been 12, but I think maybe the magic number seven. Like research shows that people need to see something seven times for them to kind of digest or even maybe look it up. So, I knew that just doing one thing wasn't going to cut it.
I knew doing different things and asking people to help or mostly, people are volunteering to help. I have a hard time asking people for help. I've gotten better at that, but I have a hard time because I know people are busy. I'm busy too. I don't want to put this on anybody else because this is my mission, but I'm so thankful when other people help. That's why I think trying to do all these different aspects, try to tackle this cause in all different ways. Because like you said, different things will resonate with different people. Like, oh my gosh, what's a cool handbag? Wow, that's a cool charm. I like that shirt. So different things. Oh my gosh, the billboard. All these things will catch somebody's attention. As you mentioned, the guitar, I forgot about that. That's another, and now it's on the website. It's nuts. It was a Ted style talk at this conference in Baltimore about five, six years ago. I was learning Vienna's song, you know, start off with a message to Vienna.
Her favorite musician, Jersey, turned into an incredible song. Like, my gosh. That inspired me to start taking guitar lessons again after I had to dust off my guitar from 20 years ago. It inspired me to take guitar lessons. I practiced that a million times. A million times thank you though. It was just the beginning of the song. I said, okay, I'll just do the first minute and a half, maybe the first verse or two verses. I was so nervous.
I said, but again, I need people to pay attention to this. How in a world of all this stuff going on and at a conference, how can I make the biggest splash possible, make the biggest wave possible? I said, well, hey, why don't I do what physicians don't do, is sing and play guitar in front of a physician audience?
Jackie Morreale (47:28)
You are fearless. love it. Yeah. Dare to be, dare to be different. You seemed confident. So talented, beautiful, impactful, willing to do what it takes to get your message out.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (47:30)
I was very fearful that day. Because of her. If you listen closely to that recording, you can hear me whisper to myself, you really must listen to the very beginning. I strum a little bit and I say, ‘You can do this.’ I whisper, ‘You can do this,’ to myself. You can do this. know, you can hear it a little bit. You know, it's there. It was from that talk that a group of medical students who initially met them on the street outside the conference center. I just stopped them, because you can tell who the students are. I said, I need to tell you about something that you're not going to learn in medical school. So out of the blue, I just walked up to them and then told them, it was like a group of four or five girls and told them about it. I said, hey, I'm giving this talk, you should come. They came; they brought a few friends.
Jackie Morreale (48:21)
I'm sure they brought everybody they knew. You just stopped the conference in its tracks. Your song was so incredible. It was a beautiful moment. Even just watching virtually is really beautiful.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (48:28)
Thank you. Then they invited me to their medical school to speak in New York. So I went to the medical school. I spoke to like half their school. It was three, four years ago. I was very humbled and touched that these medical students invited me to their school.
Jackie Morreale (48:44)
If not you, if not Dr. Goldstein, at Boston Children's, someone is going to be inspired to figure out how to cure this SUDC thing in your lifetime. I'm convinced. Someone…
Dr. Denise Wunderler (48:47)
I hope so. Thank you. I feel that too. I'm half a century old, so I'm hoping to live another half of a century and then see this in our lifetime. That Vienna has a cause as well as all these other kids and be able to prevent this from happening. That's the ultimate goal: is to prevent this. When you look at how SIDS began and then SUDC, the definitions are exactly the same. It's just different ages under one versus one to 18.
You have SUDC, which is all essentially unexplained, right? Then with research, genetics, all the pathology, everything that these amazing groups are doing, especially Boston. Some of these kids, it will be caused by they had an epilepsy gene and they really have underlying epilepsy, but they never had a seizure. It was a subclinical seizure, meaning that no one knew that they had a seizure, but they have that gene. Now their death will not be unexplained. Now it's what's called, or SUDC, SUDEP, Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy. Now those will be those kids. Maybe these other kids over here, because of genetics, have a certain gene that actually predisposed them. Maybe this is a sudden death gene that no one knew that this child had. Maybe this child was already predetermined to have this outcome because of an external stimulation, maybe a stressor from the outside, from the environment, from who knows what. That's what spurred this to happen. So you're have all these where unexplained, but then it's tease out, okay, maybe this is a seizure, maybe this is cardiac, genetic, maybe some other things. That's how it will progress. And it has progressed. I don't know what the numbers is, but I know less than 10 % of families get an answer.
And those are only the ones who go into research, who get enrolled into a study. If you don't get enrolled into a study, then you don't get an answer for your child. You have a lot of hypotheses, but no answer. That's why I always encourage families if they feel comfortable to get involved with the research. Sadly, whenever a new parent texts, emails me or finds me on social media or finds me on just on the internet I just talked to a dad in California who found me on the internet.
Jackie Morreale (50:55)
That's great that you put yourself out there, because nobody knows they're part of this club until it happens, right? There's no forewarning, right? And then whatever genetic analysis or detective work you guys are doing after the fact and research is after the fact, right? So, nine out of 10 SUDC kids' parents still don't know what the underlying cause and it remains unexplained.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (51:21)
Yes, exactly. Unexplained.
Jackie Morreale (51:25)
Wow. In our lifetime, I'm convinced in our lifetime we'll be able to figure out why this is happening and prevent it. If you're on it, I'm sure it'll happen.
Jackie Morreale (52:00)
Let's talk more about the collaboration for the film. How did you come together as a production team? Are there any people you want to shout out? Were any of your family or nonprofit members also involved with this project? Any particular shout outs to people who have been there to really see your vision through?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (52:04)
Yes, gosh, that's a huge question. Many people helped. It takes a team to do everything I do. My husband is huge; he has helped me in all different ways. To get all my ideas, whether they're crazy, whether they're just out there, try to help me, since I'm the forerunner of this. There are so many people who help it go. He's really number one. The fact that I'm able to go to these film festivals is huge because we still have a life. I'm not a filmmaker 100% of the time. It's been fascinating to speak to people who do that 100% of the time. I always say I need to squeeze in my paid job so I can do all this volunteer work that I do. Luckily, flexible job. Thank you. Love it. It's great.
Having that support is huge. Having the flexibility, him changing his work schedule, which is very challenging. As an ER physician, to change his work schedule or try to, he can't always, but a lot of times he's able to make it work somehow by Vienna's grace, to be able to get it worked out. So I can go and represent the film. For Chelsea, my family is going to try to come, even though it's over a weekend and some school days, but we're going to work something out so that they can come even for a small part of it. He's been huge. All my kids, all my kids. Wearing the Vienna shirt whenever I ask them to. I know they don't always want to talk about it. They're dealing with their own grief too. We all are. We all tackle it in different ways. My parents, they're also in the film.
Huge support for the film as well. Carol Stillwell from Holmdel. She's amazing. She is the reason why there are so many amazing non-profits in Jersey because of her help. She is an amazing woman. She has such a heart of gold. When she heard Vienna's story, she couldn't do enough. She funded a lot of the film. When she saw we were doing fundraisers, she's like, Denise, here's this. I want you to focus on the film. I don't want you to worry about this other stuff. That was huge. For a time, I didn't have to worry about that at all. I'm so thankful to her for giving me that extra confidence to let me focus on this. It's such a hard topic to handle, but she gave me that confidence. She's been amazing! Stillwell-Hansen is her company.
I mentioned my husband Mike Then the film team. The nucleus of the film team would be me, Marko Albrecht, Corey O'Neill and Alexander Berg. Marko is the producer, director, he and I we're the brains behind it is how I look at it and getting it out there.
Then Alex, he's a fashion photographer by trade, all amazing pictures. He's from Sweden. He lived in New York City for over 30 years. He is into this role of cinematographer, and did an amazing job for us. Very thankful for him too. Marko brought him in. Also, Marko brought in Cory O'Neill and he's a great editor, newer in his career and Marko taught him a lot of wonderful tricks of the trade. Cory did an incredible job putting in this vast, vast footage. We have a ton of footage.
You asked about a sequel. We could easily do many more films, maybe a series, we have so much footage and to have Cory tease and label everything. The thought of all the work he put into editing the film, is a ton of work. I did a very, very small one long time ago, just for Vienna's Day, I put in a bunch of pictures. It was during the COVID year, when everything was kind of stopped. I put that video together, and that took a ton of time to put that together and just imagine what he did. Oh my goodness, for such an emotional and heart-wrenching topic too and trying to do it in the best way possible in terms of being very respectful because it is so sensitive, because it is so personal. They really did an amazing job. Those are the main people. Then you have the team at Boston Children's. We interviewed four people there.
Jackie Morreale (55:26)
Physicians or researchers?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (55:52)
Two of them physicians, all four researchers. One was genetic counselor. Then others who were interviewed for the film, like the two police officers. Two other SUDC moms as well. Trillian talks about her son Red, and then Kim talks about her son Brody. That's very, very powerful too, to hear their stories as well. Then Mary Ann was part of our board, so she also is in the film. My big sister Diane, so just a lot of different people.
Even my older sister who passed away, Carol, she passed away in 2019 when we didn't have a film yet. We did this one-minute video for a contest the previous year. She was the main speaker, she was a teacher in Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, PA. She's named as a Carol Wunderler Strohe. Mrs. Strohe, for any of the students out there. She's taught there for almost 30 years, in health and physical education.
I said to Marko, she needs to be in the film. I said, she's not here to give an interview. She must be in the film. So we took from that one-minute video a couple seconds, just a sound bite and also video of her speaking.
So, we got that in there too. It's really a huge labor of love. I think every filmmaker calls their film a labor of love because you don't know what impact it's going to have. Ours is for awareness and inspiring more research. Those are our goals. Other filmmakers, they put in millions of dollars. They want to get millions of dollars back. They hit the box office.
For us, we just want people to know about this. We want people to know about Vienna. We want people to know that there are other kids that don't only look like her. There are all different kids looking all different ways. I think it's good to hear. Boys, girls, exactly. All different skin tones, every single corner of this world, but people just don't know about it. Big shout out to everybody. Thankful for all the donors, the sponsors, everybody who made this successful, who really allowed me to be able to put something together. Really, it's a team.
Jackie Morreale (57:40)
Well, it's an incredible team and I think it starts top down, starts with the incredible vision. So thank you for spearheading all this amazing filmmaking and artistic projects all along the way. It's only been eight years and you've done so much in this time and it's really inspiring to hear you talk about it and
watch what's on your horizon next. You never know. You really are that idea person, like that scary good idea person, Denise. A lot of stuff happening. Let's talk about some advice.
So many people want to do what you're doing and do something to memorialize someone who they've lost or something that is meaningful to them. Do something and they don't necessarily know how. So as someone who has been doing this, leading a nonprofit, having all these different creative outlets and ways of getting the word out.
What would you say to someone who's interested in starting a new not-for-profit organization?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (58:35)
Well, number one, I would say know for sure that you want to do it. Answer the question to yourself: Do you really want to start a whole brand new organization? Or are there other organizations out there who you just want to really get incredibly involved and support? Someone presented that to me as well from the very beginning. Honestly, I wasn't really sure if I wanted to have my own nonprofit. It's a lot of work. Everything falls on me.
It's a lot. because you want it to look a certain way, you want it to only be positive. It's a lot of work and there's forms you need to submit every year to IRS and make sure you're in check and in good standing. That's very stressful for me all the time. I have people to help me with that.
Jackie Morreale (59:14)
We're all volunteers, all family, all friends, volunteers. So I totally understand. The further out you get from whatever horrible thing that brought you together happens, the harder it is to keep tapping into the same group of people over and over again. You have to find new ways to keep it interesting and keep people inspired. Expanding your network, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (59:32)
Yes, exactly. That's right. For you, your brother died in what, 2008? 2006. I'm sure you've probably also seen, as I've seen now, we're almost eight out, you're almost 20 out where, support has changed. People think of us differently because, for people like, oh, it's so long ago. Man, for us, it's every single day that we feel her loss.
Jackie Morreale (59:40)
2006. Yeah, it's almost 20 years. It never really changes. Time heals a little bit. It's easier to talk to it, right? But it is still there.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (59:58)
for you too.
But still there every single day. Vienna should grow old. She should be a teenager. She should be 10 now. That, I think, changes things over time because people kind of forget. I get it. People are so busy in their lives. But that's another reason why I have to put it out there. I don't want people to forget. I want people to feel comfortable. No one's really ever comfortable with death.
But you have the experience, you become more comfortable. I want people to always remember Vienna. I want people to remember that she's still part of our family. There will always be a family of five.
No matter who's on earth, who's in heaven at that moment. There will always be a family of five. That's how I think about this. Make sure that this is definitely what you want to do.
(Continued below)
Jackie Morreale (40:39)
What amount would make a difference?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (40:51)
A dollar, five dollars. When people pool their money, that's how we donated over $30,000 to Boston Children's. It wasn't people donating $20,000, $10,000. It was $5, $20, maybe $100, maybe $500 sometimes. Really, it was all this money that was pooled together. People together is a very powerful thing. It's very, very powerful force.
That's definitely one thing. If people want to donate to the awareness and education. Our three things, are awareness, education, and supporting the research. We also support families as well. It's not in our actual definition, but of course we do whatever we can do to help. People can donate directly to the research at Boston Children's Hospital. That's on our website in addition to then to us directly.
Buying a t-shirt is huge. I have maybe five or six different shirts now on the website, getting a charm. This is one of the things that I designed is the V-Halo charm. I have it trademarked also. Start off with the little charms as earrings and then to the medium size, which yeah, so this is like a little, this side. Then this went into a lapel pin because I spoke at the West Virginia Osteopathic Medical School a weeks ago and they said, any ideas? They said, yes, how about a lapel pin for a white coat? I'm like, perfect. I just sent the first student who told me this, the potential design today. I said, I want you to be the first one to see it.
Jackie Morreale (42:12)
Every lab jacket should have one on it. And jacket in general, it's beautiful. I love the idea. Great ideas can come from anywhere, anyone, and that's amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (42:17)
Thank you. It is their idea. All these things help draw attention to it. When we did the handbags, whether someone would buy a handbag and it spurs conversation. Having a charm. The Gravel Hill Church, they had a motorcycle ride last weekend, for a nonprofit.
Then the local American Legion, they spearheaded it also and led it so that every rider received one of these large charms. They're putting them on their jackets. I'm like, my gosh, like here's an amazing biker jacket. And it has a Vienna charm on there. It was just so touching. People do all these things and if they get a t-shirt, people will ask questions. I think this is really a powerful way for people to get involved, just buying a t-shirt.
Then they don't even have to say anything because this is not something that everybody really wants to talk about, but can still help the cause by wearing a shirt and having people look at the shirt. Last weekend, we were interviewed by the local news station for the motorcycle ride, and the person from the church who was one of the two who spearheaded it. Of course, I'm always wearing something regarding Vienna, some type of shirt.
She saw my shirt. She knew me from coaching, it's all volunteer, like her husband coaches, I coach, so we see each other in basketball court, like didn't really know each other.
Jackie Morreale (43:30)
I mean, you're being so humble right now, Denise. Your face is everywhere. You're on a big screen. I've seen you every time I opened my computer for the past few months. I'm so happy and proud of you. I know that this isn't necessarily what you had in mind, in life. Everybody knows you at this point.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (43:44)
I want people to know Vienna. People can forget my name. I tell the medical students, when you talk about this lecture, you can forget my name. Say, hey, Vienna's mom, who's the doctor, told me about SUDC. Thank you. She saw my shirt. We're picking kids up from track or basketball or saw me on the court or whatever.
Jackie Morreale (43:51)
Well, Vienna's mom is so humble and great. So I really love that. Thank you.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (44:14)
And so, she, because of my shirt, looked it up. Cause she never met me directly. She kind of knew me from afar. But, looked it up and then she's like, my goodness. I can't believe this happened. I just learned that last weekend. I was so touched and moved and humbled that, wow, I'm hoping that a lot of people do that. Even without speaking, you see the shirt, Hey, let me look up: www.vienna.team
Let's see, what's this all about? I see it on a billboard. I saw the shirt. Oh yeah, the 15-year-old is wearing this type of shirt at school. What's this all about?
Jackie Morreale (44:43)
It's a combination of different things, right? And then one of them clicks and some, then somebody, you know, takes the step of clicking or going to the website and my gosh, the website's great and so informative and has the articles with the research and has the ways to help and donate and do something.
There's just so much there. So, I agree. www.vienna.team is such an amazing resource for anybody looking to learn more. Great job.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (45:12)
Thank you, I appreciate that. And it's a team who put this all together. Lauren Farrell, she lives in Jersey. We put these bags together. I learned a lot from her too. She's an entrepreneur. She has all these incredible, amazing ideas. I remember her telling me once, because we did the pop-up shop at Bell Works, did the handbags and all of her amazing handbags themselves, and then included the Vienna collection, of course.
The inside's always hot pink, no matter what the outside looks like with the big V on it. One thing that she taught me, so I learned a lot from her and being the entrepreneur and just such a creative mind, said, Denise, people need to see, I forget what the magic number, for some reason seven, six in my head, it could have been 12, but I think maybe the magic number seven. Like research shows that people need to see something seven times for them to kind of digest or even maybe look it up. So, I knew that just doing one thing wasn't going to cut it.
I knew doing different things and asking people to help or mostly, people are volunteering to help. I have a hard time asking people for help. I've gotten better at that, but I have a hard time because I know people are busy. I'm busy too. I don't want to put this on anybody else because this is my mission, but I'm so thankful when other people help. That's why I think trying to do all these different aspects, try to tackle this cause in all different ways. Because like you said, different things will resonate with different people. Like, oh my gosh, what's a cool handbag? Wow, that's a cool charm. I like that shirt. So different things. Oh my gosh, the billboard. All these things will catch somebody's attention. As you mentioned, the guitar, I forgot about that. That's another, and now it's on the website. It's nuts. It was a Ted style talk at this conference in Baltimore about five, six years ago. I was learning Vienna's song, you know, start off with a message to Vienna.
Her favorite musician, Jersey, turned into an incredible song. Like, my gosh. That inspired me to start taking guitar lessons again after I had to dust off my guitar from 20 years ago. It inspired me to take guitar lessons. I practiced that a million times. A million times thank you though. It was just the beginning of the song. I said, okay, I'll just do the first minute and a half, maybe the first verse or two verses. I was so nervous.
I said, but again, I need people to pay attention to this. How in a world of all this stuff going on and at a conference, how can I make the biggest splash possible, make the biggest wave possible? I said, well, hey, why don't I do what physicians don't do, is sing and play guitar in front of a physician audience?
Jackie Morreale (47:28)
You are fearless. love it. Yeah. Dare to be, dare to be different. You seemed confident. So talented, beautiful, impactful, willing to do what it takes to get your message out.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (47:30)
I was very fearful that day. Because of her. If you listen closely to that recording, you can hear me whisper to myself, you really must listen to the very beginning. I strum a little bit and I say, ‘You can do this.’ I whisper, ‘You can do this,’ to myself. You can do this. know, you can hear it a little bit. You know, it's there. It was from that talk that a group of medical students who initially met them on the street outside the conference center. I just stopped them, because you can tell who the students are. I said, I need to tell you about something that you're not going to learn in medical school. So out of the blue, I just walked up to them and then told them, it was like a group of four or five girls and told them about it. I said, hey, I'm giving this talk, you should come. They came; they brought a few friends.
Jackie Morreale (48:21)
I'm sure they brought everybody they knew. You just stopped the conference in its tracks. Your song was so incredible. It was a beautiful moment. Even just watching virtually is really beautiful.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (48:28)
Thank you. Then they invited me to their medical school to speak in New York. So I went to the medical school. I spoke to like half their school. It was three, four years ago. I was very humbled and touched that these medical students invited me to their school.
Jackie Morreale (48:44)
If not you, if not Dr. Goldstein, at Boston Children's, someone is going to be inspired to figure out how to cure this SUDC thing in your lifetime. I'm convinced. Someone…
Dr. Denise Wunderler (48:47)
I hope so. Thank you. I feel that too. I'm half a century old, so I'm hoping to live another half of a century and then see this in our lifetime. That Vienna has a cause as well as all these other kids and be able to prevent this from happening. That's the ultimate goal: is to prevent this. When you look at how SIDS began and then SUDC, the definitions are exactly the same. It's just different ages under one versus one to 18.
You have SUDC, which is all essentially unexplained, right? Then with research, genetics, all the pathology, everything that these amazing groups are doing, especially Boston. Some of these kids, it will be caused by they had an epilepsy gene and they really have underlying epilepsy, but they never had a seizure. It was a subclinical seizure, meaning that no one knew that they had a seizure, but they have that gene. Now their death will not be unexplained. Now it's what's called, or SUDC, SUDEP, Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy. Now those will be those kids. Maybe these other kids over here, because of genetics, have a certain gene that actually predisposed them. Maybe this is a sudden death gene that no one knew that this child had. Maybe this child was already predetermined to have this outcome because of an external stimulation, maybe a stressor from the outside, from the environment, from who knows what. That's what spurred this to happen. So you're have all these where unexplained, but then it's tease out, okay, maybe this is a seizure, maybe this is cardiac, genetic, maybe some other things. That's how it will progress. And it has progressed. I don't know what the numbers is, but I know less than 10 % of families get an answer.
And those are only the ones who go into research, who get enrolled into a study. If you don't get enrolled into a study, then you don't get an answer for your child. You have a lot of hypotheses, but no answer. That's why I always encourage families if they feel comfortable to get involved with the research. Sadly, whenever a new parent texts, emails me or finds me on social media or finds me on just on the internet I just talked to a dad in California who found me on the internet.
Jackie Morreale (50:55)
That's great that you put yourself out there, because nobody knows they're part of this club until it happens, right? There's no forewarning, right? And then whatever genetic analysis or detective work you guys are doing after the fact and research is after the fact, right? So, nine out of 10 SUDC kids' parents still don't know what the underlying cause and it remains unexplained.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (51:21)
Yes, exactly. Unexplained.
Jackie Morreale (51:25)
Wow. In our lifetime, I'm convinced in our lifetime we'll be able to figure out why this is happening and prevent it. If you're on it, I'm sure it'll happen.
Jackie Morreale (52:00)
Let's talk more about the collaboration for the film. How did you come together as a production team? Are there any people you want to shout out? Were any of your family or nonprofit members also involved with this project? Any particular shout outs to people who have been there to really see your vision through?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (52:04)
Yes, gosh, that's a huge question. Many people helped. It takes a team to do everything I do. My husband is huge; he has helped me in all different ways. To get all my ideas, whether they're crazy, whether they're just out there, try to help me, since I'm the forerunner of this. There are so many people who help it go. He's really number one. The fact that I'm able to go to these film festivals is huge because we still have a life. I'm not a filmmaker 100% of the time. It's been fascinating to speak to people who do that 100% of the time. I always say I need to squeeze in my paid job so I can do all this volunteer work that I do. Luckily, flexible job. Thank you. Love it. It's great.
Having that support is huge. Having the flexibility, him changing his work schedule, which is very challenging. As an ER physician, to change his work schedule or try to, he can't always, but a lot of times he's able to make it work somehow by Vienna's grace, to be able to get it worked out. So I can go and represent the film. For Chelsea, my family is going to try to come, even though it's over a weekend and some school days, but we're going to work something out so that they can come even for a small part of it. He's been huge. All my kids, all my kids. Wearing the Vienna shirt whenever I ask them to. I know they don't always want to talk about it. They're dealing with their own grief too. We all are. We all tackle it in different ways. My parents, they're also in the film.
Huge support for the film as well. Carol Stillwell from Holmdel. She's amazing. She is the reason why there are so many amazing non-profits in Jersey because of her help. She is an amazing woman. She has such a heart of gold. When she heard Vienna's story, she couldn't do enough. She funded a lot of the film. When she saw we were doing fundraisers, she's like, Denise, here's this. I want you to focus on the film. I don't want you to worry about this other stuff. That was huge. For a time, I didn't have to worry about that at all. I'm so thankful to her for giving me that extra confidence to let me focus on this. It's such a hard topic to handle, but she gave me that confidence. She's been amazing! Stillwell-Hansen is her company.
I mentioned my husband Mike Then the film team. The nucleus of the film team would be me, Marko Albrecht, Corey O'Neill and Alexander Berg. Marko is the producer, director, he and I we're the brains behind it is how I look at it and getting it out there.
Then Alex, he's a fashion photographer by trade, all amazing pictures. He's from Sweden. He lived in New York City for over 30 years. He is into this role of cinematographer, and did an amazing job for us. Very thankful for him too. Marko brought him in. Also, Marko brought in Cory O'Neill and he's a great editor, newer in his career and Marko taught him a lot of wonderful tricks of the trade. Cory did an incredible job putting in this vast, vast footage. We have a ton of footage.
You asked about a sequel. We could easily do many more films, maybe a series, we have so much footage and to have Cory tease and label everything. The thought of all the work he put into editing the film, is a ton of work. I did a very, very small one long time ago, just for Vienna's Day, I put in a bunch of pictures. It was during the COVID year, when everything was kind of stopped. I put that video together, and that took a ton of time to put that together and just imagine what he did. Oh my goodness, for such an emotional and heart-wrenching topic too and trying to do it in the best way possible in terms of being very respectful because it is so sensitive, because it is so personal. They really did an amazing job. Those are the main people. Then you have the team at Boston Children's. We interviewed four people there.
Jackie Morreale (55:26)
Physicians or researchers?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (55:52)
Two of them physicians, all four researchers. One was genetic counselor. Then others who were interviewed for the film, like the two police officers. Two other SUDC moms as well. Trillian talks about her son Red, and then Kim talks about her son Brody. That's very, very powerful too, to hear their stories as well. Then Mary Ann was part of our board, so she also is in the film. My big sister Diane, so just a lot of different people.
Even my older sister who passed away, Carol, she passed away in 2019 when we didn't have a film yet. We did this one-minute video for a contest the previous year. She was the main speaker, she was a teacher in Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, PA. She's named as a Carol Wunderler Strohe. Mrs. Strohe, for any of the students out there. She's taught there for almost 30 years, in health and physical education.
I said to Marko, she needs to be in the film. I said, she's not here to give an interview. She must be in the film. So we took from that one-minute video a couple seconds, just a sound bite and also video of her speaking.
So, we got that in there too. It's really a huge labor of love. I think every filmmaker calls their film a labor of love because you don't know what impact it's going to have. Ours is for awareness and inspiring more research. Those are our goals. Other filmmakers, they put in millions of dollars. They want to get millions of dollars back. They hit the box office.
For us, we just want people to know about this. We want people to know about Vienna. We want people to know that there are other kids that don't only look like her. There are all different kids looking all different ways. I think it's good to hear. Boys, girls, exactly. All different skin tones, every single corner of this world, but people just don't know about it. Big shout out to everybody. Thankful for all the donors, the sponsors, everybody who made this successful, who really allowed me to be able to put something together. Really, it's a team.
Jackie Morreale (57:40)
Well, it's an incredible team and I think it starts top down, starts with the incredible vision. So thank you for spearheading all this amazing filmmaking and artistic projects all along the way. It's only been eight years and you've done so much in this time and it's really inspiring to hear you talk about it and
watch what's on your horizon next. You never know. You really are that idea person, like that scary good idea person, Denise. A lot of stuff happening. Let's talk about some advice.
So many people want to do what you're doing and do something to memorialize someone who they've lost or something that is meaningful to them. Do something and they don't necessarily know how. So as someone who has been doing this, leading a nonprofit, having all these different creative outlets and ways of getting the word out.
What would you say to someone who's interested in starting a new not-for-profit organization?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (58:35)
Well, number one, I would say know for sure that you want to do it. Answer the question to yourself: Do you really want to start a whole brand new organization? Or are there other organizations out there who you just want to really get incredibly involved and support? Someone presented that to me as well from the very beginning. Honestly, I wasn't really sure if I wanted to have my own nonprofit. It's a lot of work. Everything falls on me.
It's a lot. because you want it to look a certain way, you want it to only be positive. It's a lot of work and there's forms you need to submit every year to IRS and make sure you're in check and in good standing. That's very stressful for me all the time. I have people to help me with that.
Jackie Morreale (59:14)
We're all volunteers, all family, all friends, volunteers. So I totally understand. The further out you get from whatever horrible thing that brought you together happens, the harder it is to keep tapping into the same group of people over and over again. You have to find new ways to keep it interesting and keep people inspired. Expanding your network, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (59:32)
Yes, exactly. That's right. For you, your brother died in what, 2008? 2006. I'm sure you've probably also seen, as I've seen now, we're almost eight out, you're almost 20 out where, support has changed. People think of us differently because, for people like, oh, it's so long ago. Man, for us, it's every single day that we feel her loss.
Jackie Morreale (59:40)
2006. Yeah, it's almost 20 years. It never really changes. Time heals a little bit. It's easier to talk to it, right? But it is still there.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (59:58)
for you too.
But still there every single day. Vienna should grow old. She should be a teenager. She should be 10 now. That, I think, changes things over time because people kind of forget. I get it. People are so busy in their lives. But that's another reason why I have to put it out there. I don't want people to forget. I want people to feel comfortable. No one's really ever comfortable with death.
But you have the experience, you become more comfortable. I want people to always remember Vienna. I want people to remember that she's still part of our family. There will always be a family of five.
No matter who's on earth, who's in heaven at that moment. There will always be a family of five. That's how I think about this. Make sure that this is definitely what you want to do.
(Continued below)
More about Team Vienna - Day of Remembrance on All Seven Continents:
(Continued)
Jackie Morreale (1:02:00)
More on advice. What would you say to someone who has a great idea to get into filmmaking, any learnings that you want to share from breaking into yet another industry, film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:02:10)
I would say ask lots of questions. I've been that way my entire life and I think it's worked out pretty well. Whatever area it is, whether you know something about it, whether you don't know something about it. I think that's huge. When you're tackling something brand new, ask a ton of questions. No question is stupid. Ask friends of yours.
It worked out where it was okay. Who was involved with anything that had to do with video or film and kind of expand it from there. Volunteering also at film festivals. This is something, Jackie. I did not know anything about film festivals until I got involved. No clue. I thought film festivals were only for the celebrities, or they are super fancy. On the red carpet, taking the fun pictures and posing and all this crazy stuff, because that's their job, right?
Jackie Morreale (1:02:54)
Which by the way, you totally fit the bill! How you've looked on the red carpet recently, the blue dress with the V on the inside, amazing. I don't know who designed it for you, what haute couture designer, but it looked like a celeb, supermodel, just totally fit the bill and really, I loved it. So, celebrity life looks good on you!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:03:02)
Wow, thank you. Holy cow. Okay. Oh my gosh. Wow. Thanks. Now I'm really blushing. Okay. I never knew that the film festivals were public. Anybody can go. You just have to buy a ticket. Never knew.
Jackie Morreale (1:03:31)
I didn't know that either. That's great. Let's go!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:04:34)
That's what I'm saying, exactly. You know what? There are over 12,000 film festivals in the world.
Jackie Morreale (1:04:40)
Wow, that's a lot.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:04:42)
That's a ton, never knew. Big, little, everywhere in between. All different places all around the world. It's really fascinating. I never knew that. So I definitely want people to know that part, the majority of them, anybody can go.
My very first film festival actually I hosted. This is kind of a crazy story. That was so 2024 March Garden State Film Festival in New Jersey, Asbury Park. The previous year, 2023, of any place of any film festival, I didn't know of many, but I knew about Garden State from living in Jersey, hearing so many amazing things about Garden State Film Festival. I said, if we ever have a film, that's going to be the very, very first place I would love to show the film. Screen the film, screening, now that's a film term, so as I learned. All this new vocabulary, Jackie, as being a filmmaker, is all brand new. I never talked like this before. Screening and cuts, that was never in my lingo.
So, it's 2023, I'm looking ahead to whenever the film is done. I said, okay, well, let's look at Garden State Film Festival 2024. How can Team Vienna be a friend on the website, in the brochure for the film festival? How can Team Vienna somehow get in there? I want people to know that we are a friend of the Garden State Film Festival, right? I'm looking on the website. I emailed the person who turned out being Diane Raver, who's the heart of the Garden State Film Festival and one of the founders. She's an amazing person. I absolutely adore her. It turned out this phone number led to her. I'm like, holy cow, I'm talking to this amazing woman, Mrs. Raver. We were chatting, and it should have been only a three minute conversation to give my credit card number for, to place the smallest possible ad I could with Vienna's gorgeous face in the brochure for 2024. We don't even have like a final film yet, or even a cut at that into a 30 plus minute conversation. Of course, she likes to talk, I like to talk. So we're talking this whole time. She's like, oh, Denise, I have the perfect job for you. She said, I would like you to be a host at the Garden State Film Festival next year. I have the perfect film. I have the perfect film block for you. I was like, OK. I had no idea what it meant. I've never been to a film festival before.
What does it mean to be a host? Oh my goodness. What do I have to do? But I said yes immediately. I think that's also another piece of advice. Sometimes you have to say yes to stuff. Even if you know it's probably going to be an amazing experience and a really cool experience, maybe you don't really know how to do it yet. Maybe you have to figure it out. Say yes anyways and figure it out. I had enough time. I had many, many months to figure this out.
So, I said yes. I didn't think about it. I just said yes, and it worked out. Then she sent me the script. She's like, make sure you want to say this, whatever. I'm like, are you kidding me? This is now many months before the March 2024 Garden State Film Festival. I read the script, It essentially said, hello, welcome to the Garden State Film Festival. I'll be your host, and say your name and all this stuff. I'm like, I'm going to be the one saying this? I couldn't believe it. Now there are multiple hosts. I was a host for a film block. There were maybe five films, which is two and a half hours. I was the one who welcomed in the beginning. Then as soon as the films were done, I moderated with the microphone and the audience would ask questions. I had some questions already created that they recommended. Because again, I'm brand new with this. They gave me great questions and I'm like, I'll choose that one and that one I like. I had backup questions in case no one had any questions. Did that.
Diane Raver, amazing woman, said, Denise, I also want you to take a minute when you're hosting that morning, talk about Vienna. I'm like, really? Wow. Because a lot of the films in that block had causes attached to them. Like, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy was when I couldn't wait to see that film. It was, at Everest and everything at the base camp. Then some other films, autism and so other causes. I was really touched that she thought about me and that she felt that was a perfect fit. I was able to also interact with these other amazing people, amazing parents who are doing incredible things for their children, living or deceased. I felt very privileged and honored to be able to have that role. I took her up on her offer and I did time exactly one minute because of course I practice everything. Like a million times. I took one minute and I practiced this and practiced this forever. I said, I'm going have this one minute and I'm talking about Vienna. So I did. Then when I was done speaking on that part, everyone in the audience stood up.
It was crazy. I was so thankful that Diane said I should do that. Being incredibly respectful to the filmmakers there, that's their light. This is their moment. This is their time. Their films are being shown. But since you gave me that permission for that one minute, I took it. Then people afterwards, my gosh, I know someone who this happened to.
I'm going to look for your film. Because I said, hey, look out for next year. Hopefully you'll see our film, Vienna's film next year. Then it was, it ended up, that was our world premiere in 2025 in March.
Jackie Morreale (1:06:18)
Diane knew that you were a filmmaker before you were actually a filmmaker.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:06:24)
I guess so. Yeah, she's very intuitive. She's been in the business for a really, really long time when a lot of women were not in the business too. She's quite a gem. I'll just tell you between Diane Raver from the Garden State Film Festival and Carol Stilwell, I do mention them that they're like my fairy godmothers. Diane said one day, I hope to make all your dreams come true, in terms of being a fairy godmother and it was really sweet. I feel very thankful that there's so many people who are supportive and who want to help, but that was such an amazing opportunity to host. Then the next year, and even the next, like for 2025, I asked her, Diane, Hey, so should I volunteer? Our film is in, I said, Oh my gosh, thank you so much for accepting our film.
Then I said, should I volunteer too? She's like, Denise, stop. She's like, no. Go to the festival as a filmmaker. I'm like, oh, OK. I'm so glad she told me that. Otherwise, I would have been trying to volunteer in addition to being a filmmaker. So I'm glad. Because all these other years, I can volunteer. I won't always have a film. Glad she told me that.
Jackie Morreale (1:07:16)
I think that's your overachiever sense. Like you're going to do everything. Like you, want to be there, you want to help out, you know everybody, you're going to inspire people, you're going to win awards.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:07:26)
It was unbelievable too when we won that first award, Homegrown.
Jackie Morreale (1:07:30)
The names of your awards you've won, I know you did an audience choice recently. This was New Hope, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:07:36)
Yes, New Hope Film Festival was an Audience Choice Award, which is amazing. Then Long Island International Film Expo, that was also an Audience Choice Award. I did not realize this until I was interviewed a bunch of times during that film festival, especially after we won. Some people say that the Audience Choice Award is the number one award for a film festival. To me, I always think it's because it's the audience who chooses, right? It's the audience who chooses. I always thought, it's the best feature, the best actor kind of thing, but she put it in that way. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. This is a big deal. I didn't realize. Again, for me, it's awareness, it's more attention to this because, let's face it, I'm just honest and I'm just going to say it,
She's still gone. We really don't win. I mean, but we win in terms of people paying attention to this, and that's where the win comes. People noticing this because if your film doesn't win, people still pay attention, but not nearly as if you win, kind of like the gold medalist. People remember the gold medalist name. They don't remember the silver medalist, but the silver medalist is still probably incredibly amazing. Amazing athlete.
But you remember the gold medalist. Just like any of these awards, you remember the winner. I'm just thankful that people will remember her name, remember her gorgeous face, and this is what it's all about. I need people to remember her. So those are the two Audience Choice Awards. Then for Garden State, it was a best homegrown short documentary. I don't know if they had an Audience Choice Award. I don't know, because I never heard of it, honestly. So maybe not until we won in Long Island. I'm my gosh, this is an award. It was amazing, is an understatement.
It's amazing. The support that I felt at all the film festivals so far to date, those three, hard to even put into words, and people wanting to learn about Vienna. It was so easy to strike up conversations with people because they're all filmmakers and they all have a passion in storytelling. They wanted to learn about Vienna's story. I wanted to learn about what they're doing. What are they passionate about?
And learn from them too. It's one thing I always say to our kids, is you learn from everyone in this world. You learn from everyone. It doesn't matter who they are. You learn from every single human being on this earth. You can learn from. You learn how to be a lot of times, but also you learn how not to be. You learn both. I think they're doing that, the festivals have been incredible. Then we have now Chelsea Film Festival in New York City, my goodness. Coming up. The New York City premiere!
Jackie Morreale (1:09:52)
I'm so excited for you guys. I get what you're saying in terms of, you've won all these awards, but she's still gone, right? But she's brought you guys together in a bigger way. She's brought so many people around the world together in a big way. She's given hope to parents who are now all of a sudden in this situation where they don't know what to do or they're not from a medical background. They don't have the understanding that you do of what unexpected means or what the research looks like. It's bittersweet, but you've won and you're taking it to New York City and that's a huge stage. And from there, who knows? Let's quantify this, because I know everybody really wants to see your documentary film. Once you've done your film circuit, where can we see Vienna: Suddenly an Angel?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:10:41)
Well, we would love a collaboration if a distribution company wants to get involved. We're all open for that. Maybe we'll be on Amazon or Netflix or something like that. Some of my friends, well, they were strangers before, but they're filmmakers and actors from the film festivals. Some of their films are coming out now, which is so exciting because, I'm brand new in all this and to know, hey, Lenny's movie, Lenny Thomas “Beggarman”, that was just on Amazon, that just came out.
Devon Sidell's "Love, Danielle" about the BRCA gene for breast cancer. An amazing film that's coming out on Amazon on Friday. Being able to support these other filmmakers and with their passion is so special, and this is shoes I never ever thought that I would ever be in, not for a million years. To support other people in their passions in a very different way. I mean, this is film.
It's a very unique experience, I must say.
Jackie Morreale (1:11:32)
I know you said you have hours and hours of footage. I hope that once you get more people knowing on Amazon or whatever you decide to stream or to show it. I hope that you do decide to take it to the next level, whatever it is, series, sequel, full feature.
It's very impactful and it's all good. It's whatever you envision, Denise. I can't wait to see where you take it for next steps.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:11:57)
Thank you. I don't even know what's going to happen. I just take it day by day and see if other film festivals accept us and go from there.
Jackie Morreale (1:12:01)
Thanks. I know that you were a host of a film festival and you came up with this amazing one-minute elevator pitch about SUDC and what you guys were doing. My question is this, what would you say to someone who has faced SUDC in their own family?
And what research is being done to prevent SUDC cases in the future that might give them some hope?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:12:28)
Number one, families need to know that they're not alone. Because we thought that we were alone when it happened to us. With all this awareness, we want people to know there are, unfortunately, 500 families in the US every year who experience this type of loss. I think that that's a lower number than truly what it is. There is no ICD code for SUDC to truly keep track of these deaths. And because people don't know about it, not getting deaths that are being categorized as SUDC, or even as undetermined or so. Number one is facing your own grief. As you know too, it changes all the time. Whether it's facing your own grief and then you have a spouse and you have children, maybe also brothers, sisters, but honestly, your parents, the grandparents. Everybody grieves so differently. I think people sometimes remember the parents, if it's a child, speaking from my experience.
My sister died too, so I know it also as a sister. My sister Carol passed away. She was only 54, of stage four cancer. Crazy. A healthy person too. It's not just the parents who grieve. It's the siblings who grieve. It's the grandparents who grieve because now this is all out of order. It's not the proper circle of life for someone to be two months shy of three years old and to pass away. Then you have grandparents who are still rocking strong. Those are some things that my parents have told me. My parents are incredible people. I call them the most amazing people on the planet. I really mean that, they really are. My favorite couple of all time besides my husband and I. Of course, I've got to include my husband. Mike's amazing too. But my parents grieve too. They initially grieved as losing a grandchild and two years later, their own daughter, my sister.
I think we have to remember everybody in the mix here and that some days you have good days, some days are most horrific days. Yesterday was a really horrible day for me. What topped it off, and this is such a nothing thing. When I got my hair cut, all my hair got chopped off by accident.
I didn't want it to be this short.
Jackie Morreale (1:14:14)
I wanted to say, I haven't seen you for a few years. Your hair looks amazing. Not everybody has the face for short hair. I think it looks amazing on you. I love it. To see you right next to your beautiful daughter, you guys just have the face for the short hair. I love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:14:18)
That's true. Her hair is there. No, that is true. Well, I donated 12 inches last year, and two years prior, my oldest, and I donated like 10 and 14 inches. It's pretty amazing, we grew it out pretty long to be able to donate it. The moral story is, yesterday was such a tough day, and I probably should have just hibernated at home, but still I have so many things I have to do. I try to use my time super-duper productively. I'll do two and three things at once.
So let me just knock this off the list. I needed the haircut yesterday, and it turned into this whole big thing. It's one of those things where, on a normal day, big deal, the hair is shorter than it usually is. Who cares? But yesterday, I really cared. It was just a tough day for me. That just inflamed everything. It was a whole huge fire that was just brought up, because there's always a smolder of grief. It's always there. Depends when it is going to go, is there a fire over there? Is there a fire over there? And yesterday was my fire. And in the end I said, thank you for trying to fix this. And I walked out. I tried to be as gracious as I could, but it was so hard. I'm like saying to myself, Denise, it's just hair. Who cares? I'm saying this to myself. And I said, look, my daughter passed away. This is nothing.
Jackie Morreale (1:15:31)
So, but I really appreciate you sharing this. You're a doctor. I'm looking at you with your lab coat. You're a doctor. You're a very, very intelligent woman. You're so accomplished in your career. You have this amazing family. You have a story. You have this deep, meaningful passion for this cause and your daughter's memory. And if you get the wrong haircut,in your own head, the grief just ignites and it just all comes down to pieces. I think we're all like that and we can all empathize with that because you don't know what it is. One day it could be, somebody looks at you the wrong way or your kid comes home with a story that you don't like. It's just something little that ignites this chain of events in your own mind, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:17)
All the emotions, yes. Because on another day, who cares? It's hair, it'll grow back. But yesterday, I really cared yesterday. Oh gosh, I probably should go back and apologize. I did apologize though. I did.
Jackie Morreale (1:16:23)
I think getting your hair done sometimes is really like therapy though. I have the same lady that I've been going to for a while. We always have great conversation. It's a therapeutic thing. It's a release from the rest of the world. And if it doesn't work out the way you want it, anyway.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:44)
You're right though, one of the things I will change for next time, I need to go to the same person. Here's the thing, I don't usually care.
Jackie Morreale (1:16:49)
Easy going, because everything's going on up here. You're dealing with awesome, smart, tough, Harley riders, creating the bikes that people want to buy. Yeah, you should probably find the same guy or gal to keep it the way you like it. That's one less thing to think about.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:58)
Yes, and I actually called her yesterday and I said, I'll be seeing you in a little bit. I do need to do that, but like I said, 99.9 % of the time, it doesn't matter. Honestly, that was my mantra yesterday as I'm driving home. I was so upset and Denise, it is hair, it doesn't matter. It's only hair, who cares?
Jackie Morreale (1:17:24)
It's what it is. That makes you human and thank you for sharing that because like you've had so much success and so many achievements and you talk about biology like it's easy and you could really just do and take on anything.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:17:27)
I'm very human, believe me.
Jackie Morreale (1:17:38)
You've taken on the filmmaking world, this crazy, intangible world where we're just trying to entertain people, but you've actually taken it on in such a way where you're educating people and inspiring people. You've taken it to the next level and taken doctors and given them a voice for entertainment. It's amazing. Anyway, your hair looks great. So I hope that you know that your hair looks great.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:18:03)
Thank you, thank you. I wasn't saying all that just to get those compliments by the way. I didn't do that on purpose.
Jackie Morreale (1:18:08)
I think it looks great on you. Anyway. So last thing, the film. If you were to share any stuff that we could look forward to, thoughts on a sequel, any creative projects, is there anything that we can look forward to in terms of seeing more Vienna: Suddenly an Angel in the future?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:18:30)
If someone would want to create a longer film and felt that it would be something that people would watch, I would say yes to that. In the back, back, back of my mind, I only said this probably once before. Since we have this song, "I Think About You" song for Vienna.
And I recorded it. That was another late addition to the film. It was right before one of the cuts in there, towards the end where, now we're getting into film festivals. Where I said, the original version of the song is amazing and I really like it, but this is my message to my little girl that I wrote within a couple months after she passed away. Words were driving me absolutely crazy. It was like a hurricane in my head. So, I put them down on my phone and then my mind quieted. It was really an amazing experience. I've never had that kind of experience before. Then when I looked at the words, I'm like, holy cow, this looks kind of like a verse, that's a chorus, that's a verse. Then this song was created by Mr. Ray in Jersey. He knows my kids, played for them multiple times.
I then decided I needed to record this. I record the song. It's in the film and it's me singing that part. The next step is now for film festivals; you can submit a music video. I'm like, if some longer thing doesn't happen, that's not in my plan at the moment, but maybe it's someone else's plan in the world, and please talk to me about that, whoever that is.
But maybe a music video. We have all this footage, so putting it to my song for my little girl and that I could also then have another turn in some of these film festivals in years to come. Right now I'm trying to explore every single opportunity that this film has to offer and try to maximize all the publicity, anything that comes my way, maximize it for this amazing little girl and all the SUDC kids. That is my main focus right now. But eventually it would be great to do a music video and then again, rekindle it. Even if it stays up, let's do something else and bump it up again with the music video. That's another thing that I was thinking about in terms of film festivals. I do have some other creative stuff I want to tell you about too.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:17)
Is it available anywhere where we can download music as part of the soundtrack?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:21)
That's a great idea. The original song by Ray Anderson, that is on YouTube and that's actually on my website as well. It's not me singing, that's not out there just yet, just his version's out there, which is still an amazing song. Mine's a little different. It's more of a rock version of the song.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:30)
Yes, you do. Love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:37)
But in terms of the creative stuff, you mentioned about the gown. So. I don't want to say publicly the joke. OK, I had this joke that I always say about the gown.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:48)
The gown was fabulous.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:50)
Thank you. Well, so the gown was $18. The gown was $18. Yes. So I wanted certain things. Like I didn't need a long slit up my thigh. I didn't want that. I need to look a certain way. Like I'm not 25 anymore with nice biceps and triceps anymore. I'm a little older and I don't have what I used to have.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:52)
Says the semi pro basketball player. Okay. We feel very bad for your biceps right now.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:21:16)
Well, they're just not what they once were, as nothing is when you're like 25. You know what mean? When I was working out all the time, pumping iron out and really do that, now I walk and go for hikes, but I don't do the upper body. I should, but I don't. So there's a certain way that I don't want certain things exposed. No one needs to see, pasty white legs. I'm just going to say call it what it is. I said, hey, how can we put the name of the film in the gown?
I wear a Team Vienna shirt pretty much every single day, except if I'm going to Harley, I wear a Harley shirt. But it's always something Vienna. There's no way I can wear a gown or something like that and not have my daughter's name somewhere. I can't do it. I can't wear it. I can't. I'll just end up wearing a t-shirt and no one wants to see that. If it's a fancy event, like Chelsea seems to be, I have to kind of step my game up a little bit.
I've realized, that makes me a little nervous though. So thank you. I'm definitely going to bring that one for sure. I got a second one made. I have another and I bought this one at a thrift shop for 20 bucks. Yes. I wasn't even looking for me, was looking for my oldest, for a dress for a dance. She found a dress, and I saw this blue thing hanging there. I'm like, I've got to look at this thing.
Because I love royal blue. That's the color.
Jackie Morreale (1:22:23)
The blue is amazing on you. With the blue dress, it had a slit and is that how you got the Vienna logo? As an open, sneak peak at Vienna, was sewn in instead of the slit?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:22:32)
Yes, it was sewn in the slit. And today, I'm getting something else made at my printer who prints these shirts. She's like, Denise, I've never done this before. It was a sheer piece of material. She put the design on there, pressed it down. We're like, please don't destroy the material because the first design, I only had one piece of material that fit perfectly in terms of the color and everything I had. It was hard to get.
Jackie Morreale (1:22:49)
I was nervous. So, they got it the first time! That's good.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:22:58)
She did, the seamstress in Harrisburg, PA is amazing. She did the one. Then with Chelsea Film Festival, it's going to be pretty fancy. Then just by chance found this other gown for 20 bucks at the thrift shop. So again, the printing, the film is also in the slit again, right? But now I've got it. Now I'm going today to do something else. I want to be a little bit more fancy. I'm doing that today at my local printer.
So that's going to happen. It is kind of nice. A couple of times I forgot to open it up, because think people know it's there, but people don't know it's there. When I'm up on stage, I have to remember to open up the gown and people are like, oh my gosh, that's in the gown. That's pretty cool. Again, it's all, so people remember that I'm Vienna's mom.
Jackie Morreale (1:23:24)
It is so cool. When you get to the end of the red carpet to open up the slit with the Vienna logo on the end. It's so beautiful. It's like a smart clothing piece. It just looked designer to me and I loved it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:23:45)
I will let you know a little secret and hopefully none of the people I'm going to say this joke to will hear this, oh, so the gown that you saw, right? I'll say, oh, well, I don't know if you've ever heard of this designer, but the designer is W. Al Mart.
Jackie Morreale (1:23:56)
No, seriously? That's where the blue dress is from? W. Al Mart (i.e. Walmart), lol?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:23:57)
Right.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:00)
It's like anything you touch turns gold. Like I don't know how that's even possible. Are you serious? I hope that the folks at W. Al Mart hear this message and decide to give you your own line because it was incredible. I thought it was custom made by a designer in New York, was so smart.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:21)
I loved it and it was so meaningful.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:24:21)
Thank you. I've looked at really expensive gowns, but I did that very, very short amount of time because I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this. I like to repurpose stuff.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:30)
Well, you're repurposing stuff and you're going for your cause, right? So you want something to represent that. Who wants to be like everybody else at the end of the day? You have to dare to be different. That's how you stand out. Just be yourself. I love your W. Al Mart joke, lol.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:24:45)
Yeah, and I don't want to spend tons of money. Years ago, when did the handbags, I inquired to get a gown actually made, it was thousands of dollars, custom design. I was like, absolutely not, totally cost prohibitive. There's no way I'm going to do that.
I prefer to be creative. Even my husband will say, it looks like nothing in the refrigerator or nothing in the house. Huh, what can I put together that will be edible? Usually I'll make something that he likes. He's a great cook too. It's just fun to me to see, hey, can I make something out of nothing or out of something that maybe I wouldn't wear otherwise, but hey, let me change it in a way that it'll honor my daughter and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It's inexpensive and the alterations were inexpensive too. Very, very thankful for all that. That's the gown story. Another thing that's coming up is a special bracelet. I'm working with the company to do that. I finally decided upon the bracelet, so that's in the works.
Then also the most recent one, the lapel pin? From the medical students. Yes, yes, the West Virginia DO students.
Jackie Morreale (1:25:40)
The next school lapel pins would be amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:25:46)
I'm like, my gosh, what a great idea. So really I'm using one of my current charms and then I'm modifying it a little bit. There's always something else. Yeah, there's always something else. I can't turn off my brain. There's always something I'm thinking about.
Jackie Morreale (1:25:57)
You're just fire. There's always stuff going on and always planning. I can't wait to hear the music from your film. All the best of luck and success in this and so many other art fields. Can't wait to see what you do Denise in your daughter's memory and for your foundation.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:26:19)
I'm just so thankful for all the support, all the love, the friendship, the people who have come out to help in so many different ways that I never could have even imagined. I'm always open for other projects, other ideas to get the word out in another different way, that maybe it's not even in my brain yet or I don't know something that hasn't been been created yet, to try, to really spread the word of Vienna and SUDC and all the kids. So none of the kids are forgotten. I don't want our kids to be forgotten. With doing all these different projects, that's a way to keep everyone's memory alive, not just Vienna's. The film was also dedicated to all the kids, I mean as my lecture is every single time I give the lecture.
Every time that brings tears to my eyes because I want other families to know that, it's mostly about Vienna and obviously it's Vienna: Suddenly an Angel, but you know, it's for them too. It's for them too. Thank you so much, Jackie, for having me. This has been such a wonderful conversation.
I wish you great luck and great skill in wonderful interviews.
Jackie Morreale (1:27:16)
Have a wonderful day!
To learn more about Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness, visit: www.Vienna.team
Jackie Morreale (1:02:00)
More on advice. What would you say to someone who has a great idea to get into filmmaking, any learnings that you want to share from breaking into yet another industry, film?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:02:10)
I would say ask lots of questions. I've been that way my entire life and I think it's worked out pretty well. Whatever area it is, whether you know something about it, whether you don't know something about it. I think that's huge. When you're tackling something brand new, ask a ton of questions. No question is stupid. Ask friends of yours.
It worked out where it was okay. Who was involved with anything that had to do with video or film and kind of expand it from there. Volunteering also at film festivals. This is something, Jackie. I did not know anything about film festivals until I got involved. No clue. I thought film festivals were only for the celebrities, or they are super fancy. On the red carpet, taking the fun pictures and posing and all this crazy stuff, because that's their job, right?
Jackie Morreale (1:02:54)
Which by the way, you totally fit the bill! How you've looked on the red carpet recently, the blue dress with the V on the inside, amazing. I don't know who designed it for you, what haute couture designer, but it looked like a celeb, supermodel, just totally fit the bill and really, I loved it. So, celebrity life looks good on you!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:03:02)
Wow, thank you. Holy cow. Okay. Oh my gosh. Wow. Thanks. Now I'm really blushing. Okay. I never knew that the film festivals were public. Anybody can go. You just have to buy a ticket. Never knew.
Jackie Morreale (1:03:31)
I didn't know that either. That's great. Let's go!
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:04:34)
That's what I'm saying, exactly. You know what? There are over 12,000 film festivals in the world.
Jackie Morreale (1:04:40)
Wow, that's a lot.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:04:42)
That's a ton, never knew. Big, little, everywhere in between. All different places all around the world. It's really fascinating. I never knew that. So I definitely want people to know that part, the majority of them, anybody can go.
My very first film festival actually I hosted. This is kind of a crazy story. That was so 2024 March Garden State Film Festival in New Jersey, Asbury Park. The previous year, 2023, of any place of any film festival, I didn't know of many, but I knew about Garden State from living in Jersey, hearing so many amazing things about Garden State Film Festival. I said, if we ever have a film, that's going to be the very, very first place I would love to show the film. Screen the film, screening, now that's a film term, so as I learned. All this new vocabulary, Jackie, as being a filmmaker, is all brand new. I never talked like this before. Screening and cuts, that was never in my lingo.
So, it's 2023, I'm looking ahead to whenever the film is done. I said, okay, well, let's look at Garden State Film Festival 2024. How can Team Vienna be a friend on the website, in the brochure for the film festival? How can Team Vienna somehow get in there? I want people to know that we are a friend of the Garden State Film Festival, right? I'm looking on the website. I emailed the person who turned out being Diane Raver, who's the heart of the Garden State Film Festival and one of the founders. She's an amazing person. I absolutely adore her. It turned out this phone number led to her. I'm like, holy cow, I'm talking to this amazing woman, Mrs. Raver. We were chatting, and it should have been only a three minute conversation to give my credit card number for, to place the smallest possible ad I could with Vienna's gorgeous face in the brochure for 2024. We don't even have like a final film yet, or even a cut at that into a 30 plus minute conversation. Of course, she likes to talk, I like to talk. So we're talking this whole time. She's like, oh, Denise, I have the perfect job for you. She said, I would like you to be a host at the Garden State Film Festival next year. I have the perfect film. I have the perfect film block for you. I was like, OK. I had no idea what it meant. I've never been to a film festival before.
What does it mean to be a host? Oh my goodness. What do I have to do? But I said yes immediately. I think that's also another piece of advice. Sometimes you have to say yes to stuff. Even if you know it's probably going to be an amazing experience and a really cool experience, maybe you don't really know how to do it yet. Maybe you have to figure it out. Say yes anyways and figure it out. I had enough time. I had many, many months to figure this out.
So, I said yes. I didn't think about it. I just said yes, and it worked out. Then she sent me the script. She's like, make sure you want to say this, whatever. I'm like, are you kidding me? This is now many months before the March 2024 Garden State Film Festival. I read the script, It essentially said, hello, welcome to the Garden State Film Festival. I'll be your host, and say your name and all this stuff. I'm like, I'm going to be the one saying this? I couldn't believe it. Now there are multiple hosts. I was a host for a film block. There were maybe five films, which is two and a half hours. I was the one who welcomed in the beginning. Then as soon as the films were done, I moderated with the microphone and the audience would ask questions. I had some questions already created that they recommended. Because again, I'm brand new with this. They gave me great questions and I'm like, I'll choose that one and that one I like. I had backup questions in case no one had any questions. Did that.
Diane Raver, amazing woman, said, Denise, I also want you to take a minute when you're hosting that morning, talk about Vienna. I'm like, really? Wow. Because a lot of the films in that block had causes attached to them. Like, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy was when I couldn't wait to see that film. It was, at Everest and everything at the base camp. Then some other films, autism and so other causes. I was really touched that she thought about me and that she felt that was a perfect fit. I was able to also interact with these other amazing people, amazing parents who are doing incredible things for their children, living or deceased. I felt very privileged and honored to be able to have that role. I took her up on her offer and I did time exactly one minute because of course I practice everything. Like a million times. I took one minute and I practiced this and practiced this forever. I said, I'm going have this one minute and I'm talking about Vienna. So I did. Then when I was done speaking on that part, everyone in the audience stood up.
It was crazy. I was so thankful that Diane said I should do that. Being incredibly respectful to the filmmakers there, that's their light. This is their moment. This is their time. Their films are being shown. But since you gave me that permission for that one minute, I took it. Then people afterwards, my gosh, I know someone who this happened to.
I'm going to look for your film. Because I said, hey, look out for next year. Hopefully you'll see our film, Vienna's film next year. Then it was, it ended up, that was our world premiere in 2025 in March.
Jackie Morreale (1:06:18)
Diane knew that you were a filmmaker before you were actually a filmmaker.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:06:24)
I guess so. Yeah, she's very intuitive. She's been in the business for a really, really long time when a lot of women were not in the business too. She's quite a gem. I'll just tell you between Diane Raver from the Garden State Film Festival and Carol Stilwell, I do mention them that they're like my fairy godmothers. Diane said one day, I hope to make all your dreams come true, in terms of being a fairy godmother and it was really sweet. I feel very thankful that there's so many people who are supportive and who want to help, but that was such an amazing opportunity to host. Then the next year, and even the next, like for 2025, I asked her, Diane, Hey, so should I volunteer? Our film is in, I said, Oh my gosh, thank you so much for accepting our film.
Then I said, should I volunteer too? She's like, Denise, stop. She's like, no. Go to the festival as a filmmaker. I'm like, oh, OK. I'm so glad she told me that. Otherwise, I would have been trying to volunteer in addition to being a filmmaker. So I'm glad. Because all these other years, I can volunteer. I won't always have a film. Glad she told me that.
Jackie Morreale (1:07:16)
I think that's your overachiever sense. Like you're going to do everything. Like you, want to be there, you want to help out, you know everybody, you're going to inspire people, you're going to win awards.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:07:26)
It was unbelievable too when we won that first award, Homegrown.
Jackie Morreale (1:07:30)
The names of your awards you've won, I know you did an audience choice recently. This was New Hope, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:07:36)
Yes, New Hope Film Festival was an Audience Choice Award, which is amazing. Then Long Island International Film Expo, that was also an Audience Choice Award. I did not realize this until I was interviewed a bunch of times during that film festival, especially after we won. Some people say that the Audience Choice Award is the number one award for a film festival. To me, I always think it's because it's the audience who chooses, right? It's the audience who chooses. I always thought, it's the best feature, the best actor kind of thing, but she put it in that way. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. This is a big deal. I didn't realize. Again, for me, it's awareness, it's more attention to this because, let's face it, I'm just honest and I'm just going to say it,
She's still gone. We really don't win. I mean, but we win in terms of people paying attention to this, and that's where the win comes. People noticing this because if your film doesn't win, people still pay attention, but not nearly as if you win, kind of like the gold medalist. People remember the gold medalist name. They don't remember the silver medalist, but the silver medalist is still probably incredibly amazing. Amazing athlete.
But you remember the gold medalist. Just like any of these awards, you remember the winner. I'm just thankful that people will remember her name, remember her gorgeous face, and this is what it's all about. I need people to remember her. So those are the two Audience Choice Awards. Then for Garden State, it was a best homegrown short documentary. I don't know if they had an Audience Choice Award. I don't know, because I never heard of it, honestly. So maybe not until we won in Long Island. I'm my gosh, this is an award. It was amazing, is an understatement.
It's amazing. The support that I felt at all the film festivals so far to date, those three, hard to even put into words, and people wanting to learn about Vienna. It was so easy to strike up conversations with people because they're all filmmakers and they all have a passion in storytelling. They wanted to learn about Vienna's story. I wanted to learn about what they're doing. What are they passionate about?
And learn from them too. It's one thing I always say to our kids, is you learn from everyone in this world. You learn from everyone. It doesn't matter who they are. You learn from every single human being on this earth. You can learn from. You learn how to be a lot of times, but also you learn how not to be. You learn both. I think they're doing that, the festivals have been incredible. Then we have now Chelsea Film Festival in New York City, my goodness. Coming up. The New York City premiere!
Jackie Morreale (1:09:52)
I'm so excited for you guys. I get what you're saying in terms of, you've won all these awards, but she's still gone, right? But she's brought you guys together in a bigger way. She's brought so many people around the world together in a big way. She's given hope to parents who are now all of a sudden in this situation where they don't know what to do or they're not from a medical background. They don't have the understanding that you do of what unexpected means or what the research looks like. It's bittersweet, but you've won and you're taking it to New York City and that's a huge stage. And from there, who knows? Let's quantify this, because I know everybody really wants to see your documentary film. Once you've done your film circuit, where can we see Vienna: Suddenly an Angel?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:10:41)
Well, we would love a collaboration if a distribution company wants to get involved. We're all open for that. Maybe we'll be on Amazon or Netflix or something like that. Some of my friends, well, they were strangers before, but they're filmmakers and actors from the film festivals. Some of their films are coming out now, which is so exciting because, I'm brand new in all this and to know, hey, Lenny's movie, Lenny Thomas “Beggarman”, that was just on Amazon, that just came out.
Devon Sidell's "Love, Danielle" about the BRCA gene for breast cancer. An amazing film that's coming out on Amazon on Friday. Being able to support these other filmmakers and with their passion is so special, and this is shoes I never ever thought that I would ever be in, not for a million years. To support other people in their passions in a very different way. I mean, this is film.
It's a very unique experience, I must say.
Jackie Morreale (1:11:32)
I know you said you have hours and hours of footage. I hope that once you get more people knowing on Amazon or whatever you decide to stream or to show it. I hope that you do decide to take it to the next level, whatever it is, series, sequel, full feature.
It's very impactful and it's all good. It's whatever you envision, Denise. I can't wait to see where you take it for next steps.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:11:57)
Thank you. I don't even know what's going to happen. I just take it day by day and see if other film festivals accept us and go from there.
Jackie Morreale (1:12:01)
Thanks. I know that you were a host of a film festival and you came up with this amazing one-minute elevator pitch about SUDC and what you guys were doing. My question is this, what would you say to someone who has faced SUDC in their own family?
And what research is being done to prevent SUDC cases in the future that might give them some hope?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:12:28)
Number one, families need to know that they're not alone. Because we thought that we were alone when it happened to us. With all this awareness, we want people to know there are, unfortunately, 500 families in the US every year who experience this type of loss. I think that that's a lower number than truly what it is. There is no ICD code for SUDC to truly keep track of these deaths. And because people don't know about it, not getting deaths that are being categorized as SUDC, or even as undetermined or so. Number one is facing your own grief. As you know too, it changes all the time. Whether it's facing your own grief and then you have a spouse and you have children, maybe also brothers, sisters, but honestly, your parents, the grandparents. Everybody grieves so differently. I think people sometimes remember the parents, if it's a child, speaking from my experience.
My sister died too, so I know it also as a sister. My sister Carol passed away. She was only 54, of stage four cancer. Crazy. A healthy person too. It's not just the parents who grieve. It's the siblings who grieve. It's the grandparents who grieve because now this is all out of order. It's not the proper circle of life for someone to be two months shy of three years old and to pass away. Then you have grandparents who are still rocking strong. Those are some things that my parents have told me. My parents are incredible people. I call them the most amazing people on the planet. I really mean that, they really are. My favorite couple of all time besides my husband and I. Of course, I've got to include my husband. Mike's amazing too. But my parents grieve too. They initially grieved as losing a grandchild and two years later, their own daughter, my sister.
I think we have to remember everybody in the mix here and that some days you have good days, some days are most horrific days. Yesterday was a really horrible day for me. What topped it off, and this is such a nothing thing. When I got my hair cut, all my hair got chopped off by accident.
I didn't want it to be this short.
Jackie Morreale (1:14:14)
I wanted to say, I haven't seen you for a few years. Your hair looks amazing. Not everybody has the face for short hair. I think it looks amazing on you. I love it. To see you right next to your beautiful daughter, you guys just have the face for the short hair. I love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:14:18)
That's true. Her hair is there. No, that is true. Well, I donated 12 inches last year, and two years prior, my oldest, and I donated like 10 and 14 inches. It's pretty amazing, we grew it out pretty long to be able to donate it. The moral story is, yesterday was such a tough day, and I probably should have just hibernated at home, but still I have so many things I have to do. I try to use my time super-duper productively. I'll do two and three things at once.
So let me just knock this off the list. I needed the haircut yesterday, and it turned into this whole big thing. It's one of those things where, on a normal day, big deal, the hair is shorter than it usually is. Who cares? But yesterday, I really cared. It was just a tough day for me. That just inflamed everything. It was a whole huge fire that was just brought up, because there's always a smolder of grief. It's always there. Depends when it is going to go, is there a fire over there? Is there a fire over there? And yesterday was my fire. And in the end I said, thank you for trying to fix this. And I walked out. I tried to be as gracious as I could, but it was so hard. I'm like saying to myself, Denise, it's just hair. Who cares? I'm saying this to myself. And I said, look, my daughter passed away. This is nothing.
Jackie Morreale (1:15:31)
So, but I really appreciate you sharing this. You're a doctor. I'm looking at you with your lab coat. You're a doctor. You're a very, very intelligent woman. You're so accomplished in your career. You have this amazing family. You have a story. You have this deep, meaningful passion for this cause and your daughter's memory. And if you get the wrong haircut,in your own head, the grief just ignites and it just all comes down to pieces. I think we're all like that and we can all empathize with that because you don't know what it is. One day it could be, somebody looks at you the wrong way or your kid comes home with a story that you don't like. It's just something little that ignites this chain of events in your own mind, right?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:17)
All the emotions, yes. Because on another day, who cares? It's hair, it'll grow back. But yesterday, I really cared yesterday. Oh gosh, I probably should go back and apologize. I did apologize though. I did.
Jackie Morreale (1:16:23)
I think getting your hair done sometimes is really like therapy though. I have the same lady that I've been going to for a while. We always have great conversation. It's a therapeutic thing. It's a release from the rest of the world. And if it doesn't work out the way you want it, anyway.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:44)
You're right though, one of the things I will change for next time, I need to go to the same person. Here's the thing, I don't usually care.
Jackie Morreale (1:16:49)
Easy going, because everything's going on up here. You're dealing with awesome, smart, tough, Harley riders, creating the bikes that people want to buy. Yeah, you should probably find the same guy or gal to keep it the way you like it. That's one less thing to think about.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:16:58)
Yes, and I actually called her yesterday and I said, I'll be seeing you in a little bit. I do need to do that, but like I said, 99.9 % of the time, it doesn't matter. Honestly, that was my mantra yesterday as I'm driving home. I was so upset and Denise, it is hair, it doesn't matter. It's only hair, who cares?
Jackie Morreale (1:17:24)
It's what it is. That makes you human and thank you for sharing that because like you've had so much success and so many achievements and you talk about biology like it's easy and you could really just do and take on anything.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:17:27)
I'm very human, believe me.
Jackie Morreale (1:17:38)
You've taken on the filmmaking world, this crazy, intangible world where we're just trying to entertain people, but you've actually taken it on in such a way where you're educating people and inspiring people. You've taken it to the next level and taken doctors and given them a voice for entertainment. It's amazing. Anyway, your hair looks great. So I hope that you know that your hair looks great.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:18:03)
Thank you, thank you. I wasn't saying all that just to get those compliments by the way. I didn't do that on purpose.
Jackie Morreale (1:18:08)
I think it looks great on you. Anyway. So last thing, the film. If you were to share any stuff that we could look forward to, thoughts on a sequel, any creative projects, is there anything that we can look forward to in terms of seeing more Vienna: Suddenly an Angel in the future?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:18:30)
If someone would want to create a longer film and felt that it would be something that people would watch, I would say yes to that. In the back, back, back of my mind, I only said this probably once before. Since we have this song, "I Think About You" song for Vienna.
And I recorded it. That was another late addition to the film. It was right before one of the cuts in there, towards the end where, now we're getting into film festivals. Where I said, the original version of the song is amazing and I really like it, but this is my message to my little girl that I wrote within a couple months after she passed away. Words were driving me absolutely crazy. It was like a hurricane in my head. So, I put them down on my phone and then my mind quieted. It was really an amazing experience. I've never had that kind of experience before. Then when I looked at the words, I'm like, holy cow, this looks kind of like a verse, that's a chorus, that's a verse. Then this song was created by Mr. Ray in Jersey. He knows my kids, played for them multiple times.
I then decided I needed to record this. I record the song. It's in the film and it's me singing that part. The next step is now for film festivals; you can submit a music video. I'm like, if some longer thing doesn't happen, that's not in my plan at the moment, but maybe it's someone else's plan in the world, and please talk to me about that, whoever that is.
But maybe a music video. We have all this footage, so putting it to my song for my little girl and that I could also then have another turn in some of these film festivals in years to come. Right now I'm trying to explore every single opportunity that this film has to offer and try to maximize all the publicity, anything that comes my way, maximize it for this amazing little girl and all the SUDC kids. That is my main focus right now. But eventually it would be great to do a music video and then again, rekindle it. Even if it stays up, let's do something else and bump it up again with the music video. That's another thing that I was thinking about in terms of film festivals. I do have some other creative stuff I want to tell you about too.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:17)
Is it available anywhere where we can download music as part of the soundtrack?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:21)
That's a great idea. The original song by Ray Anderson, that is on YouTube and that's actually on my website as well. It's not me singing, that's not out there just yet, just his version's out there, which is still an amazing song. Mine's a little different. It's more of a rock version of the song.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:30)
Yes, you do. Love it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:37)
But in terms of the creative stuff, you mentioned about the gown. So. I don't want to say publicly the joke. OK, I had this joke that I always say about the gown.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:48)
The gown was fabulous.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:20:50)
Thank you. Well, so the gown was $18. The gown was $18. Yes. So I wanted certain things. Like I didn't need a long slit up my thigh. I didn't want that. I need to look a certain way. Like I'm not 25 anymore with nice biceps and triceps anymore. I'm a little older and I don't have what I used to have.
Jackie Morreale (1:20:52)
Says the semi pro basketball player. Okay. We feel very bad for your biceps right now.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:21:16)
Well, they're just not what they once were, as nothing is when you're like 25. You know what mean? When I was working out all the time, pumping iron out and really do that, now I walk and go for hikes, but I don't do the upper body. I should, but I don't. So there's a certain way that I don't want certain things exposed. No one needs to see, pasty white legs. I'm just going to say call it what it is. I said, hey, how can we put the name of the film in the gown?
I wear a Team Vienna shirt pretty much every single day, except if I'm going to Harley, I wear a Harley shirt. But it's always something Vienna. There's no way I can wear a gown or something like that and not have my daughter's name somewhere. I can't do it. I can't wear it. I can't. I'll just end up wearing a t-shirt and no one wants to see that. If it's a fancy event, like Chelsea seems to be, I have to kind of step my game up a little bit.
I've realized, that makes me a little nervous though. So thank you. I'm definitely going to bring that one for sure. I got a second one made. I have another and I bought this one at a thrift shop for 20 bucks. Yes. I wasn't even looking for me, was looking for my oldest, for a dress for a dance. She found a dress, and I saw this blue thing hanging there. I'm like, I've got to look at this thing.
Because I love royal blue. That's the color.
Jackie Morreale (1:22:23)
The blue is amazing on you. With the blue dress, it had a slit and is that how you got the Vienna logo? As an open, sneak peak at Vienna, was sewn in instead of the slit?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:22:32)
Yes, it was sewn in the slit. And today, I'm getting something else made at my printer who prints these shirts. She's like, Denise, I've never done this before. It was a sheer piece of material. She put the design on there, pressed it down. We're like, please don't destroy the material because the first design, I only had one piece of material that fit perfectly in terms of the color and everything I had. It was hard to get.
Jackie Morreale (1:22:49)
I was nervous. So, they got it the first time! That's good.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:22:58)
She did, the seamstress in Harrisburg, PA is amazing. She did the one. Then with Chelsea Film Festival, it's going to be pretty fancy. Then just by chance found this other gown for 20 bucks at the thrift shop. So again, the printing, the film is also in the slit again, right? But now I've got it. Now I'm going today to do something else. I want to be a little bit more fancy. I'm doing that today at my local printer.
So that's going to happen. It is kind of nice. A couple of times I forgot to open it up, because think people know it's there, but people don't know it's there. When I'm up on stage, I have to remember to open up the gown and people are like, oh my gosh, that's in the gown. That's pretty cool. Again, it's all, so people remember that I'm Vienna's mom.
Jackie Morreale (1:23:24)
It is so cool. When you get to the end of the red carpet to open up the slit with the Vienna logo on the end. It's so beautiful. It's like a smart clothing piece. It just looked designer to me and I loved it.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:23:45)
I will let you know a little secret and hopefully none of the people I'm going to say this joke to will hear this, oh, so the gown that you saw, right? I'll say, oh, well, I don't know if you've ever heard of this designer, but the designer is W. Al Mart.
Jackie Morreale (1:23:56)
No, seriously? That's where the blue dress is from? W. Al Mart (i.e. Walmart), lol?
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:23:57)
Right.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:00)
It's like anything you touch turns gold. Like I don't know how that's even possible. Are you serious? I hope that the folks at W. Al Mart hear this message and decide to give you your own line because it was incredible. I thought it was custom made by a designer in New York, was so smart.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:21)
I loved it and it was so meaningful.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:24:21)
Thank you. I've looked at really expensive gowns, but I did that very, very short amount of time because I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this. I like to repurpose stuff.
Jackie Morreale (1:24:30)
Well, you're repurposing stuff and you're going for your cause, right? So you want something to represent that. Who wants to be like everybody else at the end of the day? You have to dare to be different. That's how you stand out. Just be yourself. I love your W. Al Mart joke, lol.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:24:45)
Yeah, and I don't want to spend tons of money. Years ago, when did the handbags, I inquired to get a gown actually made, it was thousands of dollars, custom design. I was like, absolutely not, totally cost prohibitive. There's no way I'm going to do that.
I prefer to be creative. Even my husband will say, it looks like nothing in the refrigerator or nothing in the house. Huh, what can I put together that will be edible? Usually I'll make something that he likes. He's a great cook too. It's just fun to me to see, hey, can I make something out of nothing or out of something that maybe I wouldn't wear otherwise, but hey, let me change it in a way that it'll honor my daughter and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It's inexpensive and the alterations were inexpensive too. Very, very thankful for all that. That's the gown story. Another thing that's coming up is a special bracelet. I'm working with the company to do that. I finally decided upon the bracelet, so that's in the works.
Then also the most recent one, the lapel pin? From the medical students. Yes, yes, the West Virginia DO students.
Jackie Morreale (1:25:40)
The next school lapel pins would be amazing.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:25:46)
I'm like, my gosh, what a great idea. So really I'm using one of my current charms and then I'm modifying it a little bit. There's always something else. Yeah, there's always something else. I can't turn off my brain. There's always something I'm thinking about.
Jackie Morreale (1:25:57)
You're just fire. There's always stuff going on and always planning. I can't wait to hear the music from your film. All the best of luck and success in this and so many other art fields. Can't wait to see what you do Denise in your daughter's memory and for your foundation.
Dr. Denise Wunderler (1:26:19)
I'm just so thankful for all the support, all the love, the friendship, the people who have come out to help in so many different ways that I never could have even imagined. I'm always open for other projects, other ideas to get the word out in another different way, that maybe it's not even in my brain yet or I don't know something that hasn't been been created yet, to try, to really spread the word of Vienna and SUDC and all the kids. So none of the kids are forgotten. I don't want our kids to be forgotten. With doing all these different projects, that's a way to keep everyone's memory alive, not just Vienna's. The film was also dedicated to all the kids, I mean as my lecture is every single time I give the lecture.
Every time that brings tears to my eyes because I want other families to know that, it's mostly about Vienna and obviously it's Vienna: Suddenly an Angel, but you know, it's for them too. It's for them too. Thank you so much, Jackie, for having me. This has been such a wonderful conversation.
I wish you great luck and great skill in wonderful interviews.
Jackie Morreale (1:27:16)
Have a wonderful day!
To learn more about Team Vienna for SUDC Awareness, visit: www.Vienna.team
Continued reading, recommended by Dr. Denise Wunderler:
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