How Eddie Vedder Turned a Concert Into a Race Against a Rare Disease

Matter of Time centers on an unexpected question: what happens when a rock musician decides to take on a rare genetic disease with science, money, and music as his tools? The documentary traces Eddie Vedder’s deeply personal involvement in the effort to cure Epidermolysis Bullosa, a disorder that leaves skin so fragile it can tear at a touch, and explores why this once-overlooked illness has reached a turning point.

At its heart, Matter of Time is about the collision of music, science and hope. The film is anchored by Vedder’s pair of emotional solo concerts at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall in 2023, events dedicated entirely to EB research. Those shows – intimate acoustic performances that helped raise over $5 million – provide a soulful soundtrack and emotional backbone to the documentary. Interwoven with the onstage footage are raw, candid stories from families living with EB and frontline researchers racing to find a cure. It’s an intimate, often painful look at life with “butterfly children” (as young EB patients are known for their delicate skin), but the tone is far from despairing. Instead, the film strikes a balance: unflinchingly showing the daily challenges of bandages and burn-like wounds, while highlighting moments of resilience and the promise of new treatments. By including scenes like a lab breakthrough – such as the first gene therapy approved for EB in 2023 – the documentary underscores its title’s message: that even the most devastating condition may only be a matter of time until it’s cured.

Directed by Matt Finlin, a Canadian filmmaker with a background in cause-driven storytelling, Matter of Time was conceived as more than just a chronicle of concerts. Finlin himself was drawn into the project after meeting a child with EB in 2019 – an encounter he says put his own life into perspective as he saw a young boy enduring what amounts to constant third-degree burns yet remaining “vibrant, funny.” That life-changing experience led Finlin to collaborate with Vedder and the EB Research Partnership (EBRP) – the nonprofit Vedder co-founded with his wife Jill Vedder – to capture their fight on film. With production support from Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy Foundation and Finlin’s company Door Knocker Media, the team set out to create a documentary that could both move audiences and mobilize them. The result premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in mid-2025 to standing ovations and later picked up Best Music Documentary honors at Nashville and Best Film at San Diego’s film festival, affirming the film’s powerful impact. An original score by Kevin Drew of indie rock band Broken Social Scene adds another layer of emotional depth, swelling around the real-life heroes on screen and reinforcing the film’s earnest, hopeful tone.

Crucially, Eddie Vedder’s presence is the entry point, but not the sole focus. While the documentary offers plenty for Pearl Jam fans – including rare solo performances and a glimpse of the famously private singer in a personal, humanitarian role – it delves equally into the community surrounding him. We meet doctors searching for treatments in their laboratories, parents caring for children whose skin can blister from a hug, and young patients who display astonishing bravery despite daily pain. Vedder appears not as a rock star being celebrated, but as a passionate advocate lending his voice to amplify theirs. In one scene, he gently interacts with families, listening more than speaking, illustrating how deeply he has become part of this cause. His wife Jill, who chairs EBRP, also features in the narrative, emphasizing the couple’s decade-long commitment to ending EB. “This is a story of hope, resilience, and the power of community,” Vedder has said of the film – and on screen, that community extends far beyond the stage. The documentary’s “cast” is essentially a coalition: scientists, caregivers, children with gauze-wrapped limbs, as well as the Seattle audiences rallying around them. Their collective voices give Matter of Time a human core and broaden its appeal from a music documentary into a testament of grassroots activism.

The themes of defiance and innovation run strong throughout the film. We see how a small network of affected families grew – with the Vedders’ help – into EBRP, now the largest global organization seeking a cure for EB. The film shows the urgency driving this movement: labs accelerating trials, collaborations with biotech firms, and a fundraising model that reinvests in research like a Silicon Valley startup. There’s an educational element, as viewers learn about the science of a rare disease in accessible terms, but Matter of Time keeps its focus on people rather than dry facts. Moments of breakthrough – a successful clinical trial, or a child’s wound healing slightly faster than before – are depicted with quiet triumph. And when setbacks or loss occur, the community’s response is to push harder. In one poignant segment, concert footage is juxtaposed with a memorial for a young woman who succumbed to EB, underscoring what’s at stake. Yet even that sadness is met with determination; as Jill Vedder notes, EB might once have been the worst disease no one knew about, but now the hope is that it will become “the worst disease we’ll find a cure for.” Such statements crystallize the documentary’s stance: awareness is only the beginning – real progress is the end goal.

Matter of Time arrives on Netflix at a moment when audiences seem increasingly drawn to true stories of perseverance and positive change. The film’s global streaming release means that what began as a niche story – a rare illness afflicting about half a million people worldwide – is now poised to reach millions more. In doing so, it joins a growing trend of documentaries that harness celebrity and storytelling to spur real-world action. Much like how other artist-led films (from climate change to social justice causes) have helped translate fandom into activism, Vedder’s documentary uses the universal language of music to connect viewers emotionally to a complex medical crusade. The genre-blending format sets it apart: part concert film, part medical documentary, part inspirational profile. It sits comfortably alongside other Netflix music documentaries, yet its purpose is distinctly advocacy-driven. For a streaming platform that has hosted everything from rock retrospectives to healthcare exposes, Matter of Time manages to bridge the two – delivering both an intimate performance and an urgent public health message. It invites music lovers to learn about a little-known condition and encourages those interested in science and humanitarian issues to appreciate the galvanizing power of art and celebrity.

In a broader cultural context, Matter of Time reflects the power of community-driven change in an era of global connectivity. The film illustrates how a committed group – patients, rock stars, philanthropists, and researchers – can collaborate in ways that were unimaginable a generation ago. It also highlights a modern model of philanthropy: venture philanthropy, as practiced by EBRP, which treats funding research almost like investing in a startup, expecting tangible returns in the form of cures or treatments. This approach has yielded dramatic results; as the documentary notes, when EBRP began in 2010 there were only a couple of EB trials underway, and now there are well over a hundred. That kind of progress in a short time span suggests a template that could impact many other rare diseases. By telling one community’s story, the film hints at a ripple effect – a “cure it forward” mentality where successes in EB could pave the way for tackling other overlooked illnesses. It’s an optimistic viewpoint, but one the documentary earns through its evidence of real developments and through the palpable passion of its subjects.

Ultimately, Matter of Time connects the intimate and the global, showing how a single song or a single act of generosity can echo across science labs and hospital rooms worldwide. The closing moments of the film circle back to Vedder on stage, guitar in hand, visibly moved by the faces of those he’s trying to help sitting in the front rows. In those frames, the distance between rock legend and vulnerable patient disappears – they are simply people united in hope. That image encapsulates the documentary’s broader significance. In a world where entertainment is often dismissed as escapism, Matter of Time is a reminder that it can also be a catalyst. By streaming this heartfelt story into living rooms around the world, Netflix is effectively staging a new kind of arena for Vedder’s performance – one where awareness, empathy and action take center stage. And as the film gently argues, with community and determination, even the toughest battles in medicine aren’t impossible; they’re just a matter of time.