It was mid July. Erin and I (Fred) were picking cherries at her Aunts orchard when Mike Lang called us, asking if we would like to shoot a short documentary of an upcoming trip he was planning.  Knowing that adventure always follows Mike around, we couldn’t refuse the offer.  He wanted a follow-up film to the full-length cancer advocacy documentary (Wrong Way To Hope)  Aaron Bryant and I had produced a couple years ago.  This time it was on boats. Sailboats. This time it was a short film.

Check out http://www.ebbflowstory.com/ for resources.

Mike sums up the film well:

“The idea for this film came out of Mike and Bonnie Lang’s experiences facilitating adventure trips, retreats and conferences with young adult survivors. Through the many conversations and group discussions with survivors, they realized how much each person’s story was able to help others and they were always amazed at the wisdom that came from the sharing those stories. Mike and Bonnie recognized that many young adult survivors didn’t realize they had a profound story or did not know where to start when sharing their story.

The goal of this film is to look at the stories of young adults with cancer using the concrete five phase story structure as the framework. Through the film we hope to encourage survivors to view their lives as epic stories; stories that need to be told to others so that the wisdom gained from the journey will not be lost. We understand that life is complicated and cannot always be categorized into five simple phases, but we think it is a good place to start.

We hope you enjoy the film. Know that your level of connectedness with the film may depend on where you are at in your cancer journey. We encourage you to come back and watch the film periodically and join the conversation with your comments and thoughts on the Survive & Thrive Facebook page. Thanks for watching!

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