SYNOPSIS

Men Don’t Cry: Prostate Cancer Stories

When Oscar®-winning documentary filmmaker John Zaritsky started directing “Men Don’t Cry: Prostate Cancer Stories,” he had no idea he was about to become a statistic himself. But just as he was finishing production, the fifty-nine year old director was diagnosed with prostate cancer. John Zaritsky: “Nobody is happy to hear the news; but in a way I felt lucky… I had spent a year watching other men cope with prostate cancer. This film is not about me; it’s about three men who have made the difficult decisions I’m now facing – decisions about impotence, incontinence and even survival.”

Bob Hunter, 60, co-founder of Greenpeace, and now ecology specialist for Toronto television station CITY-TV:

“I’m not worried about dying. I take Woody Allen’s view: it’s not death that worries me, it’s the way you go that’s the scary part.”

Jake Unger, 62, truck driver:

“I had to think about surgery. I’ve never been “carved on.” I’ve never had surgery of any kind.”

Gary Marshall, 51, auto-body mechanic:

“Rust is cancer of the car, you know; cut it, out it’s gone; and replace it with new metal, you’re fine. In my case, well they’re going to cut it out and it’s going to be gone.”

Each of these three men decided to fight their cancer in a different way, but they all knew the stakes were high.

Dr. Larry Goldenberg, head of the Prostate Centre, Vancouver General Hospital:

“If I were to come to you and say, ‘I can give you five more years of life but you’re going to be impotent,’ okay, versus, ‘You’re not going to get those five years but you can be potent ‘til the day you die.’ You have to make that decision.”

In North America, prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men, striking one in eight. Some experts estimate that the number of men diagnosed will almost triple in the next twenty years and there are no easy solutions in sight for this coming epidemic.

“Men Don’t Cry: Prostate Cancer Stories” tells the personal stories of three cancer victims through the eyes of another – the filmmaker himself.

AWARDS:

In 2003, Men Don’t Cry: Prostate Cancer Stories won a Chris Award from the Columbus Film and Video Festival, was nominated for a Golden Sheaf Award in the category Documentary Social at the Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, and won first prize in the Crystal Heart Festival of Films About Health in the Czech Republic.

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