Brief

Following a promise she made to her father on his deathbed, a lawyer sets out on a journey to clear his name and continue his controversial research on a natural cure to cancer. Along the way she takes on the medicinal establishment and the French government, determined to promote her father’s findings and continue on the same path. She creates unlikely partnerships and vindicates her father’s breakthrough treatment, while learning more about herself in the process than she could have dreamed.

What We Liked

By centering her own family’s story, the author does a great job of personalizing a larger conversation about health, medicine, and even political influence. Because the individual impact is so keenly felt, both in her own life and the lives of those her father was able to cure, it makes it easy for the audience to relate to Sylvie and root for her success. Her personal journey is powerful, and it’s something that any audience can see themselves represented within. Her message is ultimately one of goodwill and helping others, something we should all strive for, and something that is sorely needed on the world stage.

Film: A feature adaptation would follow in the footsteps of the best sort of legal dramas, and the way is more than paved for a female protagonist to lead one as there are numerous successful examples from past films. A film could be structured around Sylvie’s legal fight while still delving into her backstory and her father’s past research, as well as including her adventure around the globe to secure these life-saving extracts. Because what she’s trying to achieve is literally of life and death importance, it adds a gravity that would easily usher in an audience.

TV: This story would work really well as a limited drama series for television, or even as a true docuseries. All of the hallmarks for both are there, and both are very popular right now. The book represents both an uncovering of the truth and an attempt to spread that truth, while combating a real life conspiracy propagated by big business interests. These are all hot topics that are very much in the zeitgeist, and it could work just as well dramatized as it would as a documentary.

Key points:
True story; Female protagonist; Exciting twists and turns; Real life conspiracy elements; Interest in alternative and holistic medicine.

Synopsis

Despite a “War on Cancer” being declared by President Nixon back in 1971, cancer rates have barely decreased in the US in the last 50 years. Lawyer SYLVIE takes over her father MIRKO BELJANSKI’S life mission of curing cancer in a natural, affordable way. Through using extracts from the Pao pereira plant, Beljanski was able to eradicate dangerous cancer stem cells from the body without damaging normal cells. Beljanski was often discriminated against by pharmaceutical companies who only wanted synthetic products they could make money off, not natural alternatives. A DR. DE KUYPER familiar with Beljanski’s extracts is called into treat French President MITTERRAND. Though Mitterrand does get better for a time, this is the beginning of the end for Beljanski. Following Mitterrand’s death, both Beljanski is targeted by the established medical system. His office is raided by French police, his employees arrested, and most of his research is destroyed. He is growing iller, and Sylvie, believes he was purposely poisoned. He makes her promise to continue his fight.

Through the help of her father’s colleague BERNARD FOURCHE, she secures a batch of unprocessed extracts. Now she needs to find a way to prepare them for human consumption. Sylvie is bolstered by the accounts and support of survivors who have been helped by her father, and she realizes she’ll go to any length to continue her father’s research and fight to clear his name. This jeopardizes her relationship with her husband, KEN.

The non-profit organization CIRIS was created to support Beljanski’s research decades earlier, and the president, GERARD WEIDLICH, thinks supporters will still donate if the research continues. Because everything in France is tied up in court, Sylvie has to create a new organization in America. She sets up The Beljanski Foundation with Ken’s help, though he’s not supportive. Sylvie plans a symposium in New York in 1999 to feature holistic and alternative medicine, where she can share her father’s findings. It’s wildly successful, and her father’s 133 peer reviewed papers which prove the effectiveness of the extracts are presented.

Gerard gives Sylvie her father’s manuscript, which details how to get the extracts. She makes plans to have the manuscript published, and she now has to find the plant itself. She goes on an adventure to Brazil, trekking through the rainforest and staying with a local tribe. In exchange for the tribe sustainably harvesting the bark, the foundation will help to provide a generator and build a school. Back in America, Ken is dismissive of Sylvie agreeing to build a school because of the cost. He thinks she’s wasting her time, money, and energy on an impossible quest. Fourche is able to secure nearly all of her father’s laboratory equipment when the government releases it, planning on taking it to Germany. He thinks he’ll be able to produce a pill form of the extracts, following Beljanski’s notes.

Fourche dies in a car accident, but Sylvie is able to get a new lab set up in New Jersey. Beljanski’s methods had been researched previously to positive acclaim at Columbia University, but must pass all the rigors again because the extracts work on any cancer, regardless of organ or patient gender, which is unheard of. Thus it seems like the specific types of research are unfinished. Columbia again finds that the extracts are safe and healthy. The RNA findings of Beljanski, which can combat white cell overproduction, are reviewed by the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and are also positive.

Sylvie’s source in Brazil is shut down by deforestation projects, but she finds another source in French Guiana from an old contact. Though the foundation is doing well, Sylvie herself is on the downturn. She wakes after an emergency surgery to remove her uterus, cervix, and ovaries because of growing tumors. Fortunately she’s been taking the extract capsules so the tumors were benign. Ken isn’t there for her again, and she takes it as a sign to file for divorce. The fight against cancer garners billions of dollars a year for pharmaceutical companies, and they’re loathe to give that up and recognize any alternatives. Sylvie continues to fight the good fight to spread Beljanski’s research far and wide.

About The Author

Sylvie Beljanski, a French lawyer by trade, is a health advocate for holistic medicine, public speaker, internationally known author, and entrepreneur. She is the vice president of The Beljanski Foundation, a registered non-profit, whose mission is to further Dr. Beljanski’s research within a network of high-profile research institutions. Sylvie has relentlessly spread the word and educating the public about the effects of environmental toxics on our health. She is also the CEO of Maison Beljanski, an international dietary supplement company that brings together science and nature to create innovative natural/organic health and beauty products. These well-known products are now used around the world. Ms. Beljanski is the award winning author of "Winning The War On Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure" (which has been translated in French under the title "Gagner La Lutte Contre Le Cancer: La Découverte don’t la République n’a pas Voulu"). Ms. Beljanski is a sought-after speaker at health and wellness conferences globally, where she has educated thousands of people about scientific breakthroughs in the field of integrative medicine.