Healthcare Documentary Short: Copenhagen
Each year we do work for Runway For Recovery, a local non profit based North of Boston that helps families who are suffering from the wide ranging effects of Breast Cancer on the family. The organization traditionally supported families who have lost a loved one to the disease, and now this year they are also providing wrap-around services to women who have been diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer.
As part of this project we conducted a series of interviews in Newburyport, Massachusetts - and that is where our team met Hannah. She had been given a stage four diagnosis and she, with her family, decided to live life on their terms and fulfill a goal that they had to live abroad in Copenhagen for an extended period of time. We were so effected by her interview that day in Newburyport that we decided we needed to send our team to Copenhagen to continue our project their with Hannah and her family.
We did what could have been a stand alone edit of her story based on the footage that we shot in Massachusetts and then looked for places we could expand the story with follow up questions. We also did some location scouting of Copenhagen online, having never filmed there before. In the end, that work was helpful, but almost unnecessary because Hannah and her family we so welcoming to us and showed us the parts of Copenhagen that they had made their home. Hannah is also incredibly thoughtful and eloquent when speaking about her life after a stage four diagnosis.
Honestly, the main goal of the editing process was to do justice to Hannah and her family's story. They really opened up to us during filming and invited us into their lives both in terms of the interview and in the b-roll footage that we were able to capture. Hannah and her husband both spoke so powerfully about their goals in life - to live life on their terms and to not let cancer steal today. Our job was to show the love and connection they had for each other and tell their story.
The final piece debuted at the Runway For Recovery annual event. Unbeknownst to the audience Hannah had flown back from Copenhagen to attend. When the lights came up after the film aired Hannah took the stage - it was an incredibly powerful moment for everyone in the room.
This film was an important milestone for Runway For Recovery, it marked an expansion in services for the non-profit that has been helping families for over fifteen years. It was important to tell that story, and why it is so critical to families who have just received the diagnosis to never feel like they are alone. Runway represents an extended family who have gone through similar experiences and speak with the same vocabulary of hope and fear.
It is a project that I think about constantly, and we are proud to have contributed in our small part.