Sister’s Battle With Sickle Cell Anemia Inspired Filmmaker Charles Officer’s Nurse.Fighter.Boy
Posted September 14, 2008 12:00 pm.
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Nurse.Fighter.Boy, the feature film debut from Toronto director Charles Officer, was inspired by his sister Hannah’s battle with sickle cell anemia.
“She’s a bit older than me so growing up there would be these things I’d see from her, in her behaviour, but I didn’t know she was sick,” he reveals in an interview with CityNews.ca during the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film premiered. “She’d sleep under the table on the floor, because it’s good to sleep on a hard floor when you have this disease because (of) certain things that happen in your body and your senses and the pain. She’d get nosebleeds at the most random times and (for me) it would be, like, ‘What’s happening?'”
Set in Toronto, the film examines the relationship between three characters, Jude (Karen LeBlanc), a nurse with sickle cell anemia, her 12-year-old son Ciel (Daniel J. Gordon), and fighter Silence (Clark Johnson). When Silence cuts his head in a fight, Jude treats him in hospital, the start of an intimate bond between them.
“I wanted to really connect this idea of a trinity, which is the nurse, the fighter, and the boy, Officer explains. “They’re prompted by archetype characters of a nurturer, a warrior and a child, the three things we need to be full people.”
The filmmaker first came up with the idea for Nurse.Fighter.Boy in 2003, and though there were hiccups along the way in receiving funding, getting the project green-lit through the Canadian Film Centre, and working around Johnson’s commitments to TV series The Wire, shooting commenced last fall.
“It was just fun to be on board,” Johnson says. “It’s a sweet little movie, and it was a no-budget film, so we all sort of got changed behind parked cars, had all these little kids in boxing gloves. Although it’s a significant story, the making of it was a lot more fun, it was just a joyful celebration if I can be that corny.”
Officer reveals a different side of the city in Nurse.Fighter.Boy, inspired by childhood bike rides through alleyways. In one scene Jude’s character is riding her bike through an alley and becomes transfixed by music coming from a second-floor apartment window.
“I love alleyways, the things you find there and the textures,” he describes. “Hearing the different sounds as you pass by the different backyards, the sound of the echo, in the summer specifically, in the distance. I’ve always imagined this woman being seduced by some sound coming from a place in an alleyway, someone who just lives up there, and there’s a connection through music.”
LeBlanc, who plays Jude, says she wanted to do the part justice knowing that it was based largely on Officer’s sister.
“It made me want to do really well,” she nods. “I just wanted to be honest with myself and hopefully represent his sister. I met her and she was really happy with the film.”
Officer admits there were times he wondered whether Nurse.Fighter.Boy would ever get made, and says its inclusion in the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2008 lineup was the moment he’s been waiting for as a filmmaker, made all the more poignant by his sister’s courageous battle.
“She’s amazing, she’s survived the odds,” he says. “I’ve spoken with three other people (diagnosed with sickle cell anemia) who are very young, not even 30 yet, and they were told they weren’t going to live to see 30. How does someone take this information, and what do they do with it? And if they have a child, what do you do then? My sister ended up getting pregnant and having a little boy. It was a dangerous thing for her to do, but he’s alive and he’s beautiful, and she is too. This film is a homage to them, it’s for them.”
Comments? Suggestions? Email tiff@citynews.ca
