Directed by Joanna Rudnick • Documentary • With Joanna Rudnick • 2008 • 83 minutes
In the Family is a documentary film about predicting breast and ovarian cancer, the consequences of knowing, and the women who live with the risk. Beginning with her story of testing positive for the familial breast cancer mutation (BRCA), Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick chronicles the lives of several women currently undergoing the process of genetic testing -- following them from their decision to seek testing, through the testing process, and in the aftermath when they are coming to terms with the information they receive. These stories of the first generation of women to live with the knowledge that they are predisposed to a life-threatening disease will teach us what it means to survive a diagnosis of high risk without being consumed or defined by it. They will help us to understand the psychological, legal, ethical, cultural and social complexities of genetic testing for a mutation, which affects the entire family, for which there is no cure, and wherein the only treatments currently available involve enormous quality-of-life sacrifices.
"If the measure of a good film is that you're still thinking about it days later, then In the Family is the best movie I've seen all year." -Sommer Mathis, DCist.com
Nominee, Outstanding Informational Long Form Programming
EMMY AWARDS
2009
Directed by Joanna Rudnick • Documentary • With Rick Guidotti • 2014 • 31 minutes
ON BEAUTY is the latest film from award-winning filmmaker Joanna Rudnick and Chicago’s Kartemquin Films. The film looks at beauty through the lens of fashion photographer Rick Guidotti, who highlights vibrant indiv...
Directed by Helen Whitney • Documentary • With Sharon Stone, Gabriel Byrne • 2021 • 141 minutes
We don't know how. We don't know when. But death comes for us all.
To be human is to wrestle with this truth and with the great unanswered question: How do we live with death in our eye? Do we go gen...
Directed by Dario Guerrero • Documentary • 2022 • 60 minutes
Weaving together footage from over a quarter of a century, Rocío follows the family of undocumented Mexican immigrant and Harvard University student Dario Guerrero as they struggle to stay together in the face of his mother's terminal ...