OGDEN — The moment Clay Tweel watched a five-minute film teaser about the life of athlete Steve Gleason, he was hooked.

“I saw it and I was blown away,” the director of “Gleason,” a 2016 Sundance Film Festival documentary, said. “It hit me so hard that I knew the point of the story was something I wanted to be a part of and help bring to the world.”

Steve Gleason is a former football player for the New Orleans Saints who was diagnosed with ALS in 2011, after he retired. 

The tale of how the terminal neuromuscular disease has changed the 39-year-old athlete’s life is the subject of Tweel’s documentary, playing Thursday, Jan. 28, at Peery’s Egyptian Theater as part of the Sundance Film Festival.

“I’m looking forward to coming to Ogden,” Tweel said in a phone interview from Los Angeles about his first visit to O-Town.

 PREVIEW

• WHAT: ”Gleason”

• WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28. Director Clay Tweel will conduct a Q&A following the film.

• WHERE: Peery’s Egyptian Theater, 2415 Washington Blvd., Ogden

• ADMISSION: $20. Buy online at  www.sundance.org or at box office, noon to 6:30 p.m. daily through showtime.

When Tweel started his documentary, he inherited 1,300 hours of footage on Gleason, shot by the football star himself and others. The filmmaker has added to that during the past two years.

“The last thing we shot was in November of this year,” the director of ”Finders Keepers,” a 2015 Sundance film, said. “We continued all the way up basically until Sundance told us to stop.”

Even before Gleason was officially diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, he began videotaping himself in an effort to pass on things he wanted to share with his yet unborn son, said Scott Fujita, producer of “Gleason,” during the joint interview with Tweel.

This is Fujita’s first foray into filmmaking — “I have a very distinguished career in watching movies,” the Carmel, California, resident quipped — but the former teammate of Gleason’s wanted to be part of Steve and his wife’s decision to turn the footage into a feature-length film.

As for choosing a director, Fujita said Tweel immediately stood out.

“He was the one who wanted to jump on a plane and go and visit Steve and Michel in New Orleans,” he recalled.

• RELATED: How to choose? A guide to films playing Sundance Film Festival in Ogden

Gleason was diagnosed with ALS in January of 2011, and doctors originally gave him two to five years to live. Today, he cannot speak, he uses a wheelchair and he communicates by using his eyes to type on a special Microsoft tablet.

Rivers, the couple’s now 4-year-old son, listens to his father tell stories through recordings Gleason made before his child was born.

In the early stages of the disease, Gleason also started the Gleason Initiative Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises awareness of and research for ALS and helps those living with the disease.

“He’s always looking for the silver lining and the positive in any negative thing that’s thrown at him,” Tweel said.

Fujita agreed, explaining that his friend decided right off the disease would not determine how he lived his life but that he instead would determine how to live his life with the disease. On the one-year anniversary of his diagnosis, for instance, Gleason celebrated by jumping out of an airplane, Fujita said.

Tweel said if Gleason is a superhero so is his wife Michel, and her story is something caregivers of those with ALS can relate to.

“Michel’s story is very compelling as well and is inspiring in its own right,” the director said.

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Although he is an avid sports and football fan, Tweel said he didn’t really know much about Gleason’s story before embarking on the documentary.

However, the film director of ”Print the Legend” and “King of Kong” said he does remember seeing Gleason’s famous 2006 punt block in the Saints’ first home game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That block made Gleason a New Orleans hero and even prompted the building of a statute in his honor.

“Gleason” will appeal to folks whether they are football fans or not, Tweel said, because the story isn’t about the sport but about fathers and sons and family relationships.

“The amount of fortitude and perseverance that comes off of Steve and he exudes, it’s palpable — you can feel it,” Tweel said. “It comes through on screen how hard this guy is fighting.”

The tale of “Gleason” is a tough one; ALS is a brutal disease, the director said. Yet the film also shows that Steve and Michel are a couple facing tragedy with “so much humor and wit.”

In all his films, Tweel said he tries to go beyond what folks expect the story to be about. “Just give us those first 10 minutes,” he said of “Gleason,” “and we’ll take you down the path.”

Contact reporter Becky Cairns at 801-625-4276 or bcairns@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @bccairns or like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SEbeckycairns.

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