Press Coverage

Breast cancer patients confront death for Anchorage filmmaker
'QUIET WAR': Mary Katzke premieres her third documentary.

Stefanie LaRue is one of the subjects of "The Quiet War," which debuts, May 24, 2007, in Anchorage. (Courtesy of Mary Katzke)

By ROSE COX
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: May 22, 2007)

Link: http://www.adn.com/life/story/8907607p-8807589c.html

Since Stefanie LaRue, 31, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 2005, she has watched four of her young friends die of the disease. She has planned her own life-celebration party, right down to the music and the margaritas.

But make no mistake -- LaRue is not a quitter. Being misdiagnosed by three doctors because her youthful appearance didn't fit the profile of the average breast cancer patient has given her life new purpose.

"I had no clue I could get breast cancer at my age," she said in a telephone conversation from her home in Los Angeles. "Now my mission, my passion, my goal, my determination is to educate, educate, educate."

She has used her experience as a launching pad to talk to the public, the media and Congress about breast cancer in young women.

More than 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and most go on to celebrate their survival after treatment. But for women like LaRue who are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer -- meaning a tumor has spread, or metastasized, beyond the breast to the bones or to vital organs like the lungs and liver -- there is no cure, only disease management.

LaRue is one of five women featured in the film "The Quiet War: Profiles of Women Facing Advanced Breast Cancer." The documentary, written and directed by Anchorage resident Mary Katzke of Affinityfilms, won first place in its category at California's Reel Women International Film Festival in March. It will debut Thursday in Anchorage.

Katzke is a breast cancer survivor, and her mother succumbed to the disease. "Quiet War" is her third documentary on the topic, including the award-winning "Between Us" for early diagnosed patients and "Beyond Flowers," a film to help relatives and friends know what to say and do when a loved one is diagnosed. Both have been distributed statewide in free kits given to newly diagnosed women at cancer treatment centers through Katzke's Between Us Project.

"Quiet Wars" offers insight into the lives of five women diagnosed too late for effective treatment. Katzke and the film's associate producer, Natalie Phillips of Anchorage, polled women nationwide before choosing LaRue, Martha Foster of Alaska, Lynnly Labovitz of San Francisco, Pam Breakey of Michigan and Lisa Ashook of Santa Monica, Calif.

"Even if they're not physically in the movie, the topics we covered are the results of that mass survey," Katzke said.

The women in the film represent a cross section of the 40,000 U.S. women now living with metastatic breast cancer. They range in age from 31 to 60 and in ethnicity from Native Alaskan to Hispanic. They are married and single.

"They have a greater mission than just fighting their disease," Katzke said. "These women are living with it well and finding purpose and meaning. They want to help other women."

LaRue maintains a Web site at myspace.com/cancerwarrior. She is especially determined to raise awareness in women younger than 40, and their boyfriends and husbands, through public speaking.

"I speak to men as much as women," LaRue said. "Who is there, fondling and massaging breasts more than anybody? The guys."

Breakey, 60, is a retired Episcopal minister from the Midwest who counsels other women through an online breast cancer support group.

Foster, a Yupik tribal administrator from the village of Twin Hills near Dillingham, joined a clinical trial to help future breast cancer survivors, even though it extended her treatment time. All three will attend the Anchorage premiere of the film, which is equal parts art and education.

Childhood photos, intimate kitchen scenes and Labovitz's fine-art photography are juxtaposed with views of hospital corridors and exam and radiation rooms. The camera captures the fear and uncertainty of the initial diagnosis and the effects of treatment but also the grace and humor of these women who will never celebrate their recoveries.

Labovitz wonders if she should pay her parking tickets and refers to the treatment of cancers that pop up first here and then there as the "whack a mole" approach to living.

Foster, 42, provides a soul-restoring breath in the film's center, visually and emotionally. Bald and wearing a blue kuspuk, she talks about her experience amid sweeping views of rural Alaska, screaming seagulls and her friends' voices raised in song.

"It's not as scary as we all think it is," she says in the film. "Take one step at a time, have a good attitude." She talks of her grandfather's advice to "face evil with a smile, and maybe it will smile back at you."

The film ends with a candid talk about hospice, what it offers and when it's needed. It echoes Breakey's assertion that "we have never known when we are going to die, and we still don't know."

Daily News reporter Rose Cox can be reached at rcox@adn.com.

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