José’s story

Fondation Saint-Luc

Fundraising film

The Briefing

Every two years, we produce a film for the Saint-Luc Foundation as part of their fundraising campaign. This year, the challenge was to finance a CART-Cells production unit at Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc.

The story we wanted to tell

How do you raise awareness about CAR-T cells, killer cells derived from the lymphocytes of patients with aggressive lymphoma? We decided to tell the story from the perspective of the caregivers. These are the men and women who work at the bedside of critically ill patients, often between life and death. How do they see the evolution of medicine? How does this new treatment give them hope of curing patients who often spend weeks on their wards? We followed doctors and nurses to tell the story of José, a clinic patient who relapsed with aggressive lymphoma.

Making such a movie is both a profoundly human experience and an eminently technical task in terms of producing a narrative that respects the trust placed in it by the various characters.

Laurent Stine, Film Director.

The creative process

The approach is almost documentary. We immerse ourselves in the daily life of Unit 52 at Cliniques Saint-Luc, and in the reality of José’s suspended life. But to put reality into images, we sometimes have to recreate it. We started by listening and understanding the work of the doctors and the illness of José, who welcomed us into his life for a few weeks. However, it was impossible to film everything in real time, for budgetary reasons, but above all for medical reasons. Therefore, we re-enacted certain scenes with the real protagonists, concentrating on key moments during José’s hospitalization.

Production

To make this kind of movie, you have to take the time to understand and then meticulously prepare the shoot. The director writes a script as if it were fiction. In the end, we don’t make the protagonists “act”, but this script allows us to make a precise breakdown of the scenes to be shot and to reproduce these moments by directing the different characters towards their own reality. We create situations that allow them to instinctively reproduce the dialogues or gestures they have in real life.
Working this way also allows us to control the environment. Even if we’re working in a real environment, we can “augment” it by better managing the lighting, or by choosing rooms in the hospital that we can isolate from medical emergencies.

Broadcasting

The film was first shown at the Foundation’s fundraising gala, which brought together several hundred major donors. The screening of the film created a real emotional response and helped to raise funds.
The film is then distributed through the Foundation’s various channels. Website, social networks.

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