The Cancer Journals Revisited
Feature, experimental documentary, 98 min, 2018
directed by Lana Lin
additional camera by Toma Peiu, Luiza Pârvu
A chorus of voices recite Black feminist poet Audre Lorde’s 1980 memoir of her cancer experience, and reflect upon its personal and political impact in the present moment.
The Cancer Journals Revisited is prompted by the question of what it means to re-visit and re-vision Black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde’s classic 1980 memoir of her breast cancer experience today.
At the invitation of the filmmaker, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, twenty-seven writers, artists, activists, health care advocates, and current and former patients recite Lorde’s manifesto aloud on camera, collectively dramatizing it and producing an oration for the screen. The film is both a critical commentary and a poetic reflection upon the precarious conditions of survival within the intimate and politicized public sphere of illness.
directed by Lana Lin
director of photography H. Lan Thao Lam
camera by Luz Marina Zamora, Johanne Ebel, Cristina Mueller, Lana Lin
additional camera by Toma Peiu, Luiza Pârvu, Daryl Meador
edited by Lana Lin
sound design by Paul Hill, Gisburg Smialek
color correction and sound mix by Paul Hill
score by Gisburg Smialek
produced by Lana Lin
The Cancer Journals Revisited | Women Make Movies | Trailer