Poignant documentary highlights patients' fight against cancer

By Zhang Rui
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, December 16, 2021
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A new documentary focusing on two families and their loved ones' fight against cancer will be released next year, with box office profits going to charity, said the producers.

Tao Tao, the co-director and producer, speaks at a press event for the new documentary "Once Upon A Life" held in Beijing, Dec. 7, 2021. [Photo courtesy of C2M Media]

"Once Upon A Life," a social documentary highlighting health and medicine was directed by Tao Tao, Zhang Qi, Qin Bo and Fan Shiguang, and is the movie adaptation of a TV documentary series that spawned two highly-acclaimed seasons in 2016 and 2019. 

The new film follows two families, one with a liver cancer patient and the other with a bone tumor, as they cope with and attempt to treat the fatal diseases. 

The crew of "Once Upon A Life" spent two years gathering footage and ultimately accumulated 1,000 hours across 22 hospitals. Tao Tao, the co-director and producer, explained that they decided to work with the two families so as to explore not only the realities of cancer for the patient but also the post-traumatic stress that afflicts their family. What's more, the producers found that both families drew upon their own positivity while enduring significant physical and mental trauma, showing immense bravery in the face of indescribable challenges, and opening a powerful wellspring of post-traumatic growth, all of which can inspire the roughly 22 million cancer patients and their families in China today. 

"This is also the power that the movie wants to convey to everyone. In the process of facing life and death, you can harvest love and re-examine the relationship between yourself and your family, as well as the relationship of you with the world. Although we cannot heal death, we can heal each other's hearts," Tao Tao said. 

The documentary contains a feature that some may consider cruel – a countdown to the patients' death. Nevertheless, as producer and co-director Zhang Qi explained, "It is probably because I'm a man that particularly is afraid of death. But I'm settled, found that you may have many ways to glorify and avoid death, but this is still something we are all destined to experience. If each of us knows what day we will leave, we may cherish every day even more."

A poster for "Once Upon A Life." [Image courtesy of C2M Media]

During a press event in Beijing on Dec. 7, the film's producers and crew pledged to donate a portion of proceeds from "Once Upon A Life," which will debut nationwide on March 4, 2022, to China Charities Aid Foundation for Children. 

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