It started as a story—just an idea in 2019. A pediatric heart surgeon risking everything to save babies in war zones. But over five years, through two kids of my own, a global pandemic, and countless miles across conflict-ridden landscapes, Tiny Hearts became something far more personal. It became a testament to resilience, to sacrifice, and to the fragility of life itself.

I stood in hospitals where the air was thick with desperation. I met mothers—Syrian refugees clutching their infants as if sheer willpower could keep them alive, Ukrainian parents navigating missile strikes just to reach a doctor, families in resource-strapped villages praying for a miracle. And through it all, Dr. Bill Novick and his team did what they do best—saving lives against impossible odds.

Every time I returned home, I carried their stories with me. But nothing prepared me for the night I held my own feverish baby in a hospital in Los Angeles. A routine visit, a minor infection—easily treated. Yet, in that moment, I saw the stark divide. Here, a doctor within reach. There, a mother traveling for days, hoping her child’s heart would keep beating long enough. One million babies born each year with congenital heart disease. Most with nowhere to turn.

This film is no longer just a film. It’s a call to action. It’s my love letter to the parents fighting for their children, to the nurses, to the doctors, to every tiny heart that deserves a chance to keep beating.

This is Tiny Hearts.