Cancer in Two Voices

Director: Lucy Massie Phenix

Institute History

  • 1994 Sundance Film Festival

Description

"I am the first among our friends to have cancer. There will be others, as the statistics show. Many of my friends will see the future in the way I handle mine," Barbara Rosenblum wrote after learning she had advanced breast cancer in 1985. She and her partner, Sandy Butler, both of them teachers and writers, made a political decision to document the process of their lives for the three years Barbara had left. Cancer in Two Voices is about death, make no mistake about it. But then, isn't death a part of life? Phenix has crafted a film that is not a downward spiral. but more like an emotional twister that lifts you up.

The two women speak with searing honesty about who they are: Jewish, lesbians, friends, lovers and express all their feelings about guilt. anger, their bodies, music and the garden. Linking it all together is the" wonderful relationship. What is most inspiring is the way they provide a practical example of the way to deal with death without losing your sensitivity or a deep commitment to living. The project began as a set of journals published in 1991. augmented by original videos by Annie Hershey. The final interview was taped just three weeks before Barbara's death. At first you think the two voices are Barbara and Sandy, but in the end you realize they are the voices of the one who must go and the one who must let go.


This film is playing out of competition.

Saturday Jan 22 10:40 am
Holiday Village Cinema III

Tuesday Jan 25 7:00 pm
Holiday Village Cinema I

Thursday Jan 27 10:00 pm
Holiday Village Cinema I

$7.00

— John Cooper

Screening Details

Credits

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