Director's Statement
To me this story plays like a rock opera, suffused with emotion, intensity, larger than life characters and a score that’s lyrical and soulful. Yet despite the inherent drama—this is not fiction--its real life and nothing about cancer is predictable or scripted. We wanted to tell a story that focuses on GYN cancer because we felt the volume needs to be cranked up on the other women’s cancers, the ones no one wants to talk about, that hit below the belt.
Women are dying in alarming numbers yet if statistics mean anything people don’t seem to care. Out of 90,000 women diagnosed with GYN cancer every year, 30,000 will die. Even someone like me with rusty math can easily compute the stark reality: 1 out of 3 women diagnosed, won’t make it. Even research dollars into early detection are glaringly stilted, while GYN Cancer kills as many patients as Prostate Cancer, Prostate Cancer receives 50% more federal research funds than all GYN cancers combined. Something is wrong with this picture.
Using the powers of medicine and music to fight for their patients’ lives, N.E.D.'s passionate songs and heartfelt performances challenge our pornographic/puritannical split culture, which has such great difficulty talking about women's bodies in terms that are genuinely caring, respectful and concerned for women's health.
We hope the film signals the time has come to face the music. To shatter the silence. To lift taboos. We want people to be more aware, to start conversations. To be empowered to ask questions and to know what to ask. To openly feel as comfortable talking about their vagina as their breasts. Ultimately, we hope communities will emerge around the film and that N.E.D.’s music will ignite an awareness movement long overdue.
Rock on with us!
Andrea
Director, No Evidence of Disease