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THE NEW TRAILER:

Before

After

the ME film

A majority of breast cancer victims are advised by their surgeons to remove their breasts and lymph nodes immediately upon being diagnosed. Many do, petrified of dying without considering the less documented options. Surgical survival rates are recorded statistically but what about the ³anecdotes² of people who have lived with cancer for one, two, three decades? Filmmaker and breast cancer recipient Lexie Shabel explores her own remission story, speaking with alternative practitioners and patients as well as examining her own life that seemed predetermined genetically to have breast cancer. Shabel¹s natural manner in front of the camera offers her as an engaging character in a three-act film that follows a birth, death and rebirth format. The film has the ability to appeal to an audience ranging from those engaged by reality television to the PBS genre of viewers.

ACT 1-BIRTH

From birth, Lexie seemed destined to be the fourth generation to carry on the lineage of breast cancer. Lexie¹s Great-Grandmother, Grandma Jeanette and Aunt Susan have all had breast cancer. Aunt Susan, who after two decades of persistently fighting with breast and ovarian cancers, numerous surgeries and questionable alternative therapies, passed away the day after Thanksgiving of 2007. Before her death, Lexie interviewed her about their disconcerting common history as it is brought to life with old photographs. Beyond DNA all of Lexie¹s afflicted relatives seemed to have a deep, disturbing emotional wound that Lexie feels manifested in a tumor in her breast, a phenomenon she refers to as ³the genetic energetic². Who of the Shabel women will next? Through slides and super 8mm film, the character of Lexie is fleshed out from a happy baby to an 11-year old girl at her brother¹s Bar Mitzvah with dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Starting young as an obsessive documenter, her journals offer the real voice necessary to animate a young girl in retrospect and a life fated to have breast cancer.

ACT 2-DEATH

Award-winning Director and mentor of Shabel¹s, Michael Mierendorf traveled back to her hometown of Moorestown, New Jersey to document the first week of diagnosis, family interactions and doctor¹s appointments. The emotional process from the hysteria of being given the bad news to the acceptance of possible double mastectomies is documented in interviews as well as day in the life footage. Shabel continued film throughout her treatment of chemotherapy in ³diary cams² as well as interviewing her childhood friends about who she was and why they feel she had cancer. Another of Lexie¹s mentors, world-renowned cinematographer Dyanna Taylor shot pivotal interviews at the time of diagnosis and first recurrence in Shabel¹s home in New Mexico. Between chemos, Shabel explored spirituality in an ashram, ayurveda at a retreat in Florida as well as returning home to her dog Jenny and adopted families in a Hispanic village near Santa Fe. Painfully, every three weeks she went back to New Jersey for another dose of chemo, her dysfunctional relationship with her formerly estranged parents becoming more obvious. In an attempt to connect, Lexie requests the Jewish ritual of Shabbat be observed on the day¹s chemotherapy. One Friday evening offers the first glimpse of her father as he is making potato latkes for the night¹s meal, a direct ancestral link to his mother through food, a breast cancer casualty fifteen years earlier.

ACT 3-REBIRTH

After five of the six prescribed chemo treatments, Lexie decides to not have surgery, radiation, or the last chemo. Her surgeon regards this inaction as suicide even though all of Lexie¹s tests have come back cancer free. Struggling with the repeated poisoning of her body, financial ruin and several self-diagnosed recurrences, the filmmaker wrote a letter to friends and family explaining the alternative methods she would use to work with this ³cancer episode², asking for contributions, starting a blog. Shabel continues to work with Well Breast Massage, European Mistletoe injections and Ayurveda, a small but effective portion of the modalities that healed Shabel not only from cancer but also from the repeated poisoning of chemotherapy. Food as medicine has brought Shabel into the world as a cook for retreats. Somatic Experiencing emotional therapy has helped with the trauma from the hospital world, as well as wounds she has been carrying around since birth. The therapists who work in these atypical healing modalities are interviewed about their work, how it can help a cancer patient as it relates specifically to Lexie as well as her private sessions being documented. There are more prominent experts whom the director would like to include such as Dr. Ralph Moss of the Rudolf Steiner tradition, Dr. Harriet Beanfield who wrote an engaging paper on the history of breast cancer surgery that had great influence on Shabel¹s decision to not have surgery and Susun Weed who¹s books have offered earth based healing to women for decades. Lexie is one of the first in New Mexico to receive a medical marijuana card and has been documenting that process. Interviews with the heads of the Drug Policy Alliance, the New Mexico Board of Health, patients and growers will help demystify marijuana that helped Shabel without negative side effects during chemo and continues to help her emotionally where other drugs fail to quell the anxieties of cancer without pharmaceutical¹s side effects of constipation, depression and organ damage.

For a complete treatment of the ME film, please contact Gringa Productions.