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Alex Sparrow

Will
Power

A film by Lauro Rocha

Days before his international breakthrough, Russian singer and performer Alex Sparrow wakes from a catastrophic stroke unable to walk, speak, swallow, or sing. Then he decides who he will become.

Watch trailer
Will Power poster: Alex Sparrow's face in orange light over a crowd, heartbeat lines and film stills

Trailer

Will Power · Official trailer
Synopsis

The limits of will

When a catastrophic stroke destroys the creative half of his brain days before his international breakthrough, celebrated rebellious Russian performer Alex Sparrow wakes paralyzed: unable to walk, speak, swallow, or sing.

Filmed over several years, Will Power follows his fragile and nonlinear rehabilitation as fame fades and his family turns away. What begins as a medical recovery becomes a dramatic confrontation with identity, limitation, and choice.

Challenging the certainty of prognosis, the film explores the possibility that the boundaries defined by science are not always the limits of human will.

Type
Documentary
Runtime
69 min
Country
United States
Language
English
Year
2026
Format
Digital · Color

Stills

From the film
A man walking out of fog down a long corridor
Alex lying in the snow, seen from above
At a grand piano in a ruined, candlelit theater
Falling backward underwater, fully clothed
In a hospital bed while a boy plays a keyboard on his blanket
In silhouette against stage lights
A boy with a cardboard accordion in a dim living room
Leaping in heavy rain
A nurse's hand resting on a patient's hand
Alex Sparrow in silhouette against stage lights
The star

Alex Sparrow

aka Alexey Vorobyev

Actor, singer, composer, screenwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Alex’s credits are nothing short of mind-blowing.

Will Power is his story, and he is on screen for all of it: the stroke, the years of rehabilitation, and the artist who comes out the other side.

He relearned how to move, how to speak, and how to sing. The film stays beside him the whole way.

Director Lauro Rocha

Lauro Rocha is a Mexican filmmaker based in Los Angeles and the founder of Small World Films. A graduate of the AFI Conservatory, his work explores intimate, character-driven stories shaped by memory, displacement, and cultural identity — themes drawn from his own experience of living between two countries and cultures.

As a producer, Rocha’s credits include Butterfly Kisses, winner of the Crystal Bear at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. Will Power marks his debut as a director, launching a body of work that also includes the feature documentary Tiki Theater: Off the Record.

Director’s statement

I did not set out to make a film about inspiration. I wanted to confront the idea of will, without sentimentality, without myth.

After his stroke, there was no cinematic turning point, only repetition. A body relearning movement. A voice struggling to form sound. Then Alex made a decision: not simply to recover, but to redefine himself. Recovery became an act of authorship.

The camera does not push; it accompanies. We do not choose what happens to us. But there is a moment, sometimes quiet, sometimes invisible, when we decide who we will be in response.

When everything that defines you is taken away, what remains?

Credits

Credits

Starring
Alex Sparrow
Directed by
Lauro Rocha
Written by
Ian Boisvert
Produced by
Yan Fisher
Director of photography
Marton Taube
Cinematography
David Asambadze, Nikolai Shlykov
Editing
Olesya Kustova, Dmitriy Chistiakov
Production design
Daria Zonova
Line producer
Uvy Green
Sound design
Xavy Mas Sarda, Olesya Kustova
Presented by
FishcorbMedia
InvisibleString
No Risk No FunProduction
Festivals & screenings

Screenings

All times local