bOObs: The War on Women's Breasts

With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide sickness industry and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for curing disease naturally.

Filmmaker Judith Helfand turns the camera on herself to document her battle with cancer caused by DES, a drug prescribed to her mother during pregnancy. Refusing to confine the tears, rage, laughter and hope to dinner table conversations, Helfand invites us to witness her personal journey from radical hysterectomy patient to vocal opponent of toxic exposure. From her suburban home to the halls of Congress, the intensely private becomes widely public, and an American family is transformed and strengthened.

When diagnosed with terminal cancer, a world renowned trumpet player uses music to give hope from concert stages to mountain tops, proving art is essential to survival.

At 31, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick faces an impossible decision: remove her breasts and ovaries or risk incredible odds of developing cancer. Armed with a genetic test result that leaves her vulnerable and confused, she balances dreams of having her own children with the unnerving reality that she is risking her life by holding on to her fertility.

Dying for the Other is a video triptych, documenting the lives of mice used in breast cancer research and humans suffering from the same disease. In order to produce this video, da Costa documented scenes of her own life during the summer of 2011 and combined them with footage taken at a breast cancer research facility in New York City over the same time frame.

Kazuo Nishii, renowned editor and photography critic, died in 2001 of stomach cancer. Two months earlier he contacted Naomi Kawase, whose works he admired, to document the remaining weeks of his life. Kawase visits him in the hospital and films the progression of his sickness and the conversations between the two.

Theatre director, actor and dramaturge Peter Snickars has a brain tumor of an aggressive type. This film follows him and his family from the moment of discovery to the end.

Novelist and screenwriter Emmanuèle Bernheim and filmmaker Alain Cavalier have been friends for 30 years. They are preparing a film based on the former’s autobiography, “Tout s’est bien passé” (Everything Went Fine). In it, she tells how her father asked her to “end it” in the wake of a heart attack. Cavalier suggests that she plays herself, and that he plays her father. One winter morning, Emmanuèle calls Alain; they will have to postpone the shoot until the spring, as she needs an urgent operation.

Documents the true story of the final weeks of rehearsal for the Young at Heart Chorus in Northampton, MA, and many of whom must overcome health adversities to participate. Their music goes against the stereotype of their age group. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing new songs for a concert in their hometown.