The Mission
The mission of this project is twofold:
- To equip teenage cancer patients with video cameras, enabling them with a creative outlet and therapeutic tool for telling their stories.
- To stitch together this self-shot footage into a feature-length documentary that portrays cancer as a holistic life experience—not just a series of exams and treatments.
The Story
Most of us don’t know what it’s like to be sick when your whole life is about to start. Caught between child and adult, between hospital bed and schoolroom, between health and fatal illness, teenage cancer patients face an unimaginable journey. In this innovative documentary, the threads of their tales will weave together to form one vibrant, multihued tapestry of what this fight for life is really like.
These kids already know how to take self-pics on their cell phones and edit movies on their Macs. This film takes them one step further. By distributing video cameras to teenagers around the country and teaching them the basics of creating their own “personal documentary,” these kids become the stars—as well as the filmmakers.
Guided by Jared Morgan, a childhood cancer patient himself, this visionary project aims to portray cancer as a holistic life experience. As we’ll see, it’s a complex rite of passage comprised of hopeful doctors and concerned neighbors; overwhelmed family and friends; and blessings from the most unexpected places. By granting the audience an up-close, raw, unhidden view into the subjects’ everyday lives, the documentary takes the unpretentious role as simply, the communicator. Underneath it all lies the sympathetic goal to co-create a safe, supportive, and healing experience for the subjects—and perhaps the filmmaker himself too.
