About the Film
Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer at age 42, Dr. Katherine “Kasia” Clark was given 1-2 years to live. Ten years later, Outside In reveals her fight to reclaim body and soul, following Kasia from hospital bed to exam rooms and doctor consultations, training for triathlons, making art movies with her mother, and suing the doctors who missed her diagnosis. From the unique point of view of a doctor-turned-patient, Kasia seeks answers to profound questions – “How can I save myself?” “Who can I trust?” “Who am I now?” “How do I choose to live?” “When do I prepare to die?”
Through frank discussions with her medical doctors, psychiatrist, physicist father, artist mother, schizophrenic sister, and good friends, Kasia exposes her fears, longings, and hopes. She challenges her body with risky rock climbs, rigorous swims, vertical ski slopes. She speaks in an articulate, angry, and determined voice. She swims and swims. She finds solace in art and nature, vindication in the law, spiritualism in music, and a sense of control in filmmaking and mastering the violin.
While relying on evidence-based medical treatment and her own experience as a doctor, Kasia steps out of the box to save her life and redefine her identity, professionally and personally, physically and emotionally. Sexually. She leaves her longtime partner and home in the country to rediscover herself with new people and places, experimenting with mind/body therapies and radical nutritional regimens, always pushing herself physically to solve the mystery of, “How can I be sick if I’m getting stronger?”
Outside In was filmed over nine years and draws from 170 hours of footage, film clips, home movies, still photos, artwork, and clippings. Enhanced by multi-layered imagery, artistic elements, and a music score as complex as the film’s subject, Outside In reflects the nature and rhythms of a fascinating individual from the “outside in.” Viewers are left with fresh thoughts and feelings about healing, identity, and their own way of life, guided by the wisdom of Henry David Thoreau: You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
To read more, visit: http://outsideinthefilm.com/
