The Between Us Project for Breast Cancer

Newsflash: Mary will be speaking in Portland on June 1, 2008 at the Annual Legacy Hospital Breast Cancer Awareness Event.

She will also be touring around Oregon May 23-June 3. To book a screening or appearance, please call 907-677-7970.

Mary Katzke travels to Austin Texas with The Quiet War/October 2007

Announcement:

Distribution of the Between Us Kits for the Heart and Soul across the State of Alaska has now been graciously acquired by Pink Ribbon Days.

We are happy to see the project in such great hands!

When veteran filmmaker Mary Katzke was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, her only experience with the disease was watching her mother die from it nine years earlier. She searched in vain for a film that would show long-term survivors who honestly portrayed their experiences with the disease. She made a commitment that if she made her five year anniversary, she would create the film she so desperately needed at the time. Positive and informative in nature, Between Us: The Girlfriends Inside Guide to Facing Breast Cancer is the realization of that dream with a theme of "survivor mentorship".

Through the voices and faces of a wide cross-section of women of all ages, ethnic and economic backgrounds, we hear the inside story of facing treatment and recovery from a disease we all believed would lead to our demise. It is a very personal, intimate, and candid film that is finding a surprising number of additional and unexpected venues for use as a sensitivity training tool for surgeons to a gift of hope for husbands and families. There is no medical advice given, as opinions vary and scientific advances on a weekly basis would outdate the video too quickly.

The video developed into a "First Aid Kit for Your Heart and Soul" as survivors began dreaming of extras that would be nice to include with the video such as long distance calling cards, Kleenex, notebooks, herbal tea, bubble bath, resource guides, pocket address carriers, and candles for meditation. Soon resource lists were added, an advertising agency donated the design for packaging and publicity started.

Then Affinityfilms produced Beyond Flowers: What to Say and Do When Someone You Know Has Breast Cancer for the support team- loved ones, family and care providers. The accompanying handbook includes information not possible to include in the documentary. Click here for synopsis.

As years went on and more women with metastatic breast cancer were facing the same need, that of more information and more girlfriends' scoop on their fight against metastatic disease, we created The Quiet War: Profiles of Women Facing Advanced Breast Cancer. The Quiet War not only includes 54 minutes of profiles of five women, but also an hour of Q & A with oncologist, social worker and Musa Mayer, author of the bible for metastatic patients, Living with Advanced Breast Cancer, and a conversation about hospice care. Click here for synopsis.