MORE THAN LIVELY

Original French Title: LES PLUS QUE VIVES

Written and directed by: Jean Charruyer

Production: Horya Films

Theme: Contemporary Questions / Health / Cancer

Format: 1x52'

Synopsis: For the first time, women with breast cancer appear on stage to speak of their combat faced with this disease. A unique happening in France, due to the initiative of a doctor from the gynecological service of the University Hospital of Limoges, Dr Joëlle Mollard. These women, these patients, without theatre training, have written and act in a play which dares to speak of the unspeakable. In an intimist approach diametrically opposed to studio discussion the film is interested in the action these women have taken, attacked by disease in one of the symbols of their identity, the breast; their lives threatened, but their mental worlds as well. Through the portraits of a small number of them, filmed in their daily lives, at rehearsals, and at the University Hospital, using the most striking parts of their play as well as the account of the medical team, we come to understand their suffering in the face of sickness, the challenges they have faces, incomprehension, exclusion, and this desire to speak out in order to help others, to motivate them, so they are no longer scared of their disease. The theatre is a place where your way of looking at things can be changed, the place where looking at things is possible. We can dare to change the way the spectators look at disease, we can dare to strip ourselves naked to say that it is not shameful to have cancer, or shameful to lose one’s hair... We will also come to understand how this internal transformation can change and transform a whole life in a timeless way.