Assistive Technologies

Facing Cancer

Runtime
1hr 30mins
Directed by
Volker Heise
Featuring
Wolfram Goessling,
Helle Sachse
Body

Featuring a post-screening Q&A with director Volker Heise and Dr. Wolfram Goessling.

As a physician and researcher in Boston, Massachusetts, Wolfram Goessling battles a disease that affects patients around the world: Cancer. As a doctor he strives to cure it, as a scientist he researches it, as an educator and professor at Harvard Medical School he teaches others how to treat it.

But when one day his dermatologist tells him that the small lump on his face is not a pimple, but an angiosarcoma - a particularly aggressive cancer that is almost impossible to cure - he is suddenly forced to change sides. The doctor becomes the patient at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, two institutions where he has trained. Cancer is no longer just his profession, but also his destiny - and the chances of his survival are just four percent.

He takes up the fight, undergoing chemotherapy that robs him of the feeling in his fingers; radiation that burns his skin; and an operation that takes half his face and alters his appearance forever. He is treated by his friends and colleagues who are now his doctors.

The story is told from the perspectives of the patient whose life is at stake; the husband and father who fights to stay alive; the physician and scientist who holds no illusions and knows his disease inside out; and it features the doctors who strive to save him and his family that suffers along with him. “Facing Cancer” is a powerful and emotional film about hope and sacrifice - and about the light at the end of the tunnel.

co-presented by

This Week

  • The debut feature film from director RaMell Ross (Hale County This Morning, This Evening).

    Showtimes
  • Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s true story behind the rise of one of the most iconic singer-songwriters in history.

    Showtimes
  • The first English-language film from Pedro Almodóvar, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.

    Showtimes
  • Looking at the foreign correspondent through the cinematic lens, taught by historian and educator Judi Freeman.

    Showtimes
  • Winner of the Silver Lion for Best Direction (Brady Corbet) at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, screening in 70mm!

    Showtimes
  • From writer/director Halina Reijn (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) and starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, and Sophie Wilde.

    Showtimes
  • A five-week course on the director's most iconic films.

    Showtimes
  • A one-person illusion show that features unique theatrical and visual magic and comedy to a custom-edited musical soundtrack.

    Showtimes
  • Resistance is futile. Prepare for assimilation. 

    Showtimes
  • Winner of the Silver Lion for Best Direction (Brady Corbet) at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

    Showtimes
  • Bayard Rustin was the architect of 1963’s March on Washington. He challenged authority and never apologized for who he was, but was forgotten despite making history.

    Showtimes
  • They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.

    Showtimes
  • Boston's one and only open mic night for filmmakers!

    Showtimes