Barack Obama Celebrates Release of Moving New ALS Documentary with Former Staffers at SXSW

Former President Barack Obama made a surprise trip to Texas on Sunday for a very special cause.

The 44th POTUS joined his former White House staffers Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya for an Obama Foundation alumni event celebrating the SXSW premiere of their new documentary, No Ordinary Campaign, at Arlyn Studios in Austin.

Calling the moment a "privilege," Wallach told PEOPLE, "We first learned how to turn hope into action on his 2008 campaign. So to hear from him tonight, talking about how we are living out that legacy, was incredible."

On the day they brought their second child home from the hospital in 2017, Wallach and Abrevaya experienced another life-changing event when Wallach, then 37, was diagnosed with ALS and given six months to live

After throwing himself back into his work as a lawyer in Chicago, he decided he was going to change the future of the disease.

The tireless work of Wallach and Abrevaya, both 42, to help pass the 2021 Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Act — which aims to foster drug development and access and provide five years of monumental research funding — is documented in No Ordinary Campaign.

"I just want to say how incredibly proud and inspired I am by Brian and Sandra and their entire family and their entire network of friends who have taken an incredibly challenging moment and are driving change," Obama said in his remarks at Sunday night's event. "I think as long as I know that there are folks out here, like the two of you, and so many of you in the audience, that I continue to be hopeful about the country. And I feel hopeful about the world."

Obama appears in the documentary, speaking to Wallach's can-do attitude and ribbing the couple for not naming one of their two young daughters for him. The pair met while working on the former president's 2008 campaign.

Wallach and Abrevaya traveled to Austin with loved ones and supporters to celebrate the film's release at the Rollins Theatre over the weekend, joining executive producer Katie Couric (Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal also produced), their friend and director Christopher Burke and singer Rachel Platten, who met the couple by chance on a recent vacation and gave them the rights to her hit "Fight Song" for the film.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The film premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2022, where it won the Audience Award for best documentary, and recently screened at the 2023 Santa Barbara International Film Festival in California.

For more about Wallach and Abrevaya's inspiring work, visit their nonprofit iamals.org. If you or someone you know are looking for help navigating care for ALS or another neurodegenerative disease, check out their other venture, Synapticure, which connects patients to providers.