Kiss and Cry

Carley Allison is a high school student who figure skates and sings. She starts having trouble breathing and the diagnosis arrives: an extremely rare cancer in her windpipe. Through treatment she does not let go of skating or music, recording songs even during chemotherapy. The subject is not the illness but the decision to continue. Carley chooses to share her situation, and that sharing builds a large community online; at the centre of the film is not the pain but how that community works in both directions. The form is small and direct, moving between the rink, a hospital room and home. Real footage and staged material are not blurred together. Carley Allison was a real person; she died at eighteen and her story is widely known in Canada. The title comes from the area in figure skating where competitors sit waiting for their marks, the corner where joy and disappointment happen in the same place. Chantal Kreviazuk features in the film's songs. Sean Cisterna directs. Sarah Fisher plays Carley and Luke Bilyk her boyfriend. Who it is for: viewers who like young-adult drama drawn from true stories. Who it is not for: anyone wanting to avoid emotional manipulation; the film presses the button hard at the end and lets go of its distance.