by Jenny Yabroff

When Allie Light and Irving Saraf's 39-year-old daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer, they did what any parents would do. They cried. They got angry. Then they decided to make a movie. The San Francisco-based filmmakers, who won an Oscar for their 1991 documentary In the Shadow of the Stars and a 1994 Emmy for Dialogues with Madwomen, didn't want just to show what happens to a woman after she is diagnosed with breast cancer; they wanted to know why so many women are getting the disease in the first place.

Light and Saraf assembled a diverse group of women with breast cancer, including their producer, Nancy Evans, and together put together a list of scientists involved in researching the causes of cancer. Then, singly and in teams, the women interviewed the experts, with Light and Saraf's cameras rolling.

The film chronicles a core group of eight "investigators," all women living with cancer, questioning 22 scientists about possible links between cancer and the environment. While each researcher has a theory, ranging from DDT in drinking water to early exposure to radiation to contaminated plastics to oral contraceptives to electromagnetic fields, no one has answers.

"I really thought we were going to find a cure," says Light. "We were setting out to save our daughter's life. And it was hard hearing that there are no answers yet. I do think there are definite environmental links. The risk of breast cancer for women has doubled in the last 50 years, and the majority of women getting it today are in their thirties and forties. It remains to be seen if this epidemic is limited to the generation of women who grew up in the shadow of nuclear testing, when the crops were sprayed with DDT and babies frequently had their thymuses irradiated, or if it increases with each future generation."

By allowing the investigators to question the experts directly, Light and Saraf convey the fear and confusion a woman feels in trying to get answers about the causes of her disease. "These women are the ones whose lives are at stake, so we felt they needed to be asking the questions," says Light. "We wanted the film to be a detective story, with the women acting as the detectives, trying to solve the mystery. And it was hard giving up the control of doing the interviews ourselves, but I think the audience really relates to the women, and is able to relate to the questions through them." At the conclusion of each interview, the investigator asks if the scientist's life has been touched by breast cancer. Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes.

Although Light and Saraf's own daughter did not participate in the film, the eight investigators became like a surrogate family. "People have asked us what it's like to film so much grief," say Light. "And it was very hard, because we weren't voyeurs looking in on something happening to someone else. It was our grief as well -- we were extensions of what was happening in front of the cameras. We became very involved with the women in the film, so that there was no separation between our personal lives and this project. There's a shot of Jenny [one of the investigators] going home to die, and one of our editors thought we shot it in the rain -- only later did I realize it looks that way because I had been crying all over the lens."

Light and Saraf's inspiration for the film's title comes from biologist Sandra Steingraber, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 20, and talks about the way carcinogens such as pesticides can speed cancer-causing changes in cells' genetic material. Steingraber invokes the memory of environmental activist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring warned that future generations would pay a cost for living in an increasingly industrialized, chemicalized environment. Carson, who developed breast cancer herself, was childless, and critics wondered why she cared about future generations. But, as Steingraber points out, Rachel Carson left behind a legacy shared by the millions of women living with breast cancer today: they are all Rachel's daughters. Rachel's Daughters is being distributed by Women Make Movies.

The film will screen on Saturday, May 16th in Eugene, Oregon, and on Sunday, May 17th in Portland, Oregon.

Jenny Yabroff writes about film for numerous publications including Salon, Contra Costa Times, and HotWired.