Cancer Documentary Wins Emmy
The documentary A Lion in the House, which chronicles the journey of five young cancer patients at Cincinnati Children's, has won a Primetime Emmy Award for "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking" at the creative arts Emmy presentation in Los Angeles.
The film was created by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar of Yellow Springs, Ohio, who spent nine years following these five patients during their treatment at Cincinnati Children's and into their lives outside the hospital.
The filmmakers were given nearly unlimited access by both the families and the hospital, enabling them to chronicle all aspects of the ordeal of childhood cancer from the perspective of the patient, their families and their health care providers. Doctor consultations, family arguments, feeding tube insertions, funerals and the whole range of intense emotions associated with this disease were on display in this film.
Reichert and Bognar were invited to make the film in 1997 by Cincinnati Children's as a way to educate doctors, nurses and families fighting cancer. Their documentary aired as a two-night special "Independent Lens" broadcast on public television stations in June of 2006.
At their acceptance speech, the filmmakers praised the five kids in the film, Justin Ashcraft, Tim Woods, Alex Lougheed, Al Fields and Jennifer Moone, and thanked them and their families for their candor and courage to allow such a film to be made in the face of such difficult circumstances.
