Lucie has just learned that she has cancer, Marriah, a leg amputee, has been living with it for a long time and Jolann and Victorine are in remission. All four were under 30 when they learned they were ill. Accustomed to social networks, they took advantage of this space of expression, each in their own way, to talk about their illness and the challenges they face. The documentary “The Living” available on Play RTS demonstrates with delicacy and humor the need to tell others in order to tell oneself.
At the beginning, I got on the networks, mainly to pass the time. You are “chained” in the hospital and you have no choice: it is a question of life and death.
Victorine went through two cancers between the ages of 27 and 30. “I started making videos and talking about the disease on social media because I was looking for someone to refer to to know what was going to happen to me, on a daily basis. I wanted to see someone who would take their camera to chemo and show me how it happens.”
People began to share experiences and give each other advice between sick people and those close to people with the disease.
Because she can’t find enough answers to her questions, Victorine decides to tell the story of her illness in a video, with a touch of humor. “I took people with me to show them what I was going through. I got so many messages of encouragement, it was crazy! But the best part is that people started sharing experiences and giving each other advice between sick people and those close to people with the disease.”
Tell others to tell about yourself, to integrate what is happening to us. It’s fundamental.
“When Victorine almost puts a bit of a nice side to all this, she is also probably trying to fight against other emotions: fear, dismay,” analyzes Alexandra Spiess, a therapist for families with a sick member. “What I learned from contact with families is that such serious news, the shock of the diagnosis, is so unacceptable that we are stunned. Telling others in order to tell ourselves, to integrate what is happening to us, is fundamental.” And even if social media exchanges do not replace therapeutic monitoring, Alexandra Spiess sees a positive use in them: “It is a bulwark against loneliness because the treatments are very isolating and the lives of patients and their loved ones seem to be frozen.”
>> Alexandra Spiess, family therapist, head of As’trame Geneva:
Life drive
Far from falling into voyeurism, the film “The Living” combines with beauty and delicacy documentary images and personal videos posted on social networks. The protagonists of the film tell their stories both to the directors’ camera and on the networks. The two stories, sometimes dissonant, respond to each other and bear witness to a life drive that carries everything in its path.
RTS Documentaries, Muriel Reichenbach
“The Living” by Hélène Lam Trong and Jérémy Bulté
