About the Film

When three-year-old Magnolia Tesler was diagnosed with a rare disease, her parents didn’t know what to do. This intimate documentary follows the Tesler family as they spring into action in an effort to cure their daughter from a rare, debilitating disorder.An ordinary and healthy baby, she was crawling, talking, and hitting all her milestones. But around the age of two, she started developing mysterious symptoms:balance issues, hand wringing, speech loss, and rocking for hours in her crib. Her parents, AJ and Jenny, were desperate for answers. After taking Maggie to numerous specialists, they got a heartbreaking diagnosis: Rett Syndrome.Spanning eight years and told through home videos, vlogs, animation, and interviews,“Magnolia’s Hope” is a raw, first-hand account of a family struggling to cope with a child’s special needs through therapies, clinical trials and everything in between.

AJ Tesler is an award winning television, film and new media producer and director who has created thousands of hours of content for the likes of Netflix, Comedy Central, Lionsgate, MTV and Sony.  His narrative feature directing debut, Mayfield's Game is due out in early 2021.  

When he was a producer at Sarah Silverman's digital studio, Jash, he learned his daughter had Rett Syndrome and as a result was compelled to do everything in his power to tell her story and raise awareness for the disease.  That's when he and Jenny started making Magnolia's Hope.

AJ and his wife Jenny blog and create content about Rett Syndrome on their website magnoliashope.com

     There are 350,000 people in the world suffering from Rett Syndrome. In America there are over 30 million people living with a rare disease. Many of those people struggled to get a diagnosis and then grapple with the hopelessness of a rare disease diagnosis. They feel alone, isolated, and their worlds get increasingly smaller as friends and family struggle to connect with them or understand what their day to day life is truly like. 

Magnolia’s Hope is about one family who does everything they can to fight against that future. It is our hope this film can show people a roadmap for coming to terms with a difficult diagnosis, illustrate how one family picked themselves up off the ground and learned the importance of pushing their child and their family farther than they would have thought possible. It’s a story of redemption for all families with special needs, and a story of understanding and acceptance for the people who interact with children with special needs.