John Pace - The Diagnosis (2009)

An unsuspecting patient is set up and told he has just 24 hours to live. A quirky short film that raises some interesting questions about what it means to be diagnosed with cancer.

The outstanding film entry in the 2009 Cancer Council Arts Awards program.
 

Transcript:

Patient: How long?

Doctor: Two days maximum. Maybe one. (A woman arrives with tea.)

Patient: Are you even qualified?

Doctor: Oh, yeah.

Patient: I just came for a shot... I've always wanted to try long distance ocean swimming.

Nurse: I swam the yellow sea.

TV shock jock: Ok Dave, that's great, great. Alright. Come on it's just fate. You could be walking down a beach and have a javelin go straight through his shoulder.

Doctor: ... javelin speared through his clavicle. Stranger things happen. You could... get paralysed by a blow dart, shot by an over-sized ... (checks ear piece) ... pineapple mascot on a jet ski. We all die somehow.

Patient: There's just so much I want to do, you know. Swim across the pacific. Save a life. Eat an apple through a tennis raquet. French kiss a chinese girl.

Nurse: You still can.

Doctor: In the next twenty four hours.

TV shock jock: This is not chinese whispers. Tell him it's hereditary and his whole family will be dead in a week. Oh!

(Removes headphones, and in next scene bursts into room to surprise patient. Patient has gone. Doctor indicates window.)

TV shock jock to doctor: You're fired!

(Patient runs to beach. Finds man on beach and begins resuscitation.)

Passer-by: I think he was looking for his shot-put.

(Patient grabs tennis racquet and a girl throws an apple through it, which he bites. Wades into water. TV shock jock runs after him.)

TV shock jock: Hey! Hey. Pete, it's a joke. Can't you read the hat? Jacked. Ha ha!

(Patient sees film crew.)

TV shock jock: You thought you were dead, ha ha ha!

Shock jock turns around and is pierced by javelin and crumples to ground. Sorry, says resuscitated athlete. He is just recovering when a pineapple mascot rides by on a jet ski and shots him in the neck with a blow dart. Nurse appears and pulls off a face mask to reveal she is Chinese. She runs out and French kisses the patient. They swim off into distance.

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