Toxic Bust: Chemicals and Breast Cancer
(41 minutes) USA
Director/Producer: Megan Siler
Description:
People run, walk, write and conduct research--all for the cause of breast cancer. Yet, despite these efforts, growing numbers of American women develop breast cancer each year and we still do not know why, or how best to prevent it. Most breast cancer funding and research has gone toward treatment, and finding the elusive cure. Far less emphasis has been given to prevention and discovering the causes of breast cancer. Toxic Bust, a thought-provoking and visually compelling documentary, uncovers the growing evidence which links breast cancer to chemical exposure. The film follows a 40-something woman who finds a lump in her breast, but like the majority of women with breast cancer, she has none of the "established" risk factors. As she questions what may have caused her cancer, the film focuses on three cancer "hotspots" (Cape Cod, Bay Area, and hi-tech manufacturing workers) to more fully explore the connection between breast cancer and chemical exposure in the home, community and workplace. Toxic Bust also raises questions about the long term health costs associated with early childhood chemical exposure and highlights the disproportionate toxic burden carried by low-income communities and workers. Interweaving fiction and documentary, hard science and personal testimony, Toxic Bust challenges viewers to question how chemical use in the United States undermines the health of its citizens.
Biography:
Megan Siler, the producer/director of Toxic Bust, is an award-winning producer of both fiction and documentary films. She has an MFA from UCLA's film program, an environmental studies degree from UC Berkeley and has taught screenwriting and film production for UC Berkeley Extension, Writers Boot Camp and the Academy of Art College. She won the Emerging Talent Award from the Los Angeles Outfest for her feature length film The Midwife's Tale, a Dore Schary Award for the documentary, SingleMothers: Living On the Edge, and the UCLA Theater Arts Alumni Spotlight Award for her fictional short First Base, a short fiction film about girlhood sexuality. Megan also brings a profound personal perspective to this documentary through her experience helping her mother battle breast cancer.
Contact information:
John Hoskyns-Abrahall, President
Bullfrog Films, Inc.
372 Dautrich Road
Reading, PA 19606
E-mail: john@bullfrogfilms.com
Web site: www.bullfrogfilms.com |
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