press
{the consensus of the general critical commentary}
a father's
terrible journey
charlotte director jeff moonie,
jr. turns his camera on his ailing dad, and the result is a gripping
documentary
12 feb 2006 | lawrence toppman, the
charlotte observer
A summer filmmaking seminar gave him
confidence in 1997.
Fate gave him a theme in 2004.
The Asheville Film Festival gave him a top prize in 2005.
Now Jeff Moonie Jr. - who didn't know he had a film until he was finished
shooting it - will get his second public screening, this time in his
hometown. The Light Factory will show "Donor" on Friday at Spirit Square.
The movie's a tribute to two guys who wouldn't quit: Jeff Moonie Sr., who
fought an unusual ailment called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) for more
than a year, and Jeff Jr., who has long wanted to share his craft with
moviegoers but had no idea this would be his breakthrough.
The film stunned Asheville's documentary judges. Don Mancini,
writer-director of the hit "Child's Play" series, called it "the most
emotionally affecting film I saw in 2005." Writer-producer Barry Sandler
("Crimes of Passion") admired "his father's great dignity and
determination to survive, along with the family's devotion and
commitment."
That's impressive for footage that was once intended only for the Moonie
family's eyes.
"I was working on another project, so I had a camera around and thought
I'd archive my dad's illness," says Jeff Jr., 27. (His father had multiple
myeloma and received a stem cell transplant from a sister.) I ran camera
on him all the time, being silly, talking to nurses. I thought he'd come
all the way around, and we'd watch it together someday."
After the two Jeffs did think about reaching an audience, they named the
film "Donor" to inspire minority donors to join the registry for bone
marrow and stem cells. Then Jeff Moonie Sr. was hit by GVHD.
That disease occurs when implanted cells attack their host. Skin rash,
hair loss, liver damage, dry eyes and dry mouth follow, and the result can
be fatal. "Donor" follows Jeff Sr. through all stages of the illness but
stops short of his death last autumn.
It's a wrenching portrayal of the effect of chronic illness, not just on
the victim but on members of the family, who speak frankly about how
they're coping with changes in his personality.
"We aren't a family that puts on airs," says sister Janalyn Moonie, 23.
"You can be tactful and polite, but honesty is essential.
"It was definitely not normal to be asked about something so personal, and
I'm not comfortable with that going out into the world. But it's an
awesome film, and my dad's the most incredible man I've known. (Sharing
that) is bigger than me being comfortable seeing my family onscreen."
Nobody ever abandoned hope
Wanda Moonie, their mother, likes to quote her husband's philosophy that
"You can't spell `testimony' without `test'." Because the family thought
he'd recover, they relaxed before the camera.
"Jeff's passing came out of nowhere," said Wanda. "I'd never been afraid
when he got GVHD, until I saw him going into distress that last time. Jeff
Sr. and I were a united front all the way - not with false hope, not being
in denial, but never a lot of fear.
"Watching the film, I see his fight totally differently. I'm more aware of
how strong he was. In the film, when I see him pacing in the hospital, I'm
being sort of a cheerleader. When I watch that scene now, I see him with
tubes in him, losing a lot of weight."
Wanda Moonie calls the Jeffs' relationship "unique": The son respected his
dad but was encouraged to challenge opinions and express his own ideas,
and they were close friends who'd played together since boyhood.
"Jeffrey always wanted to know more than his dad," she says. "He would
read Readers Digest's wordplay section, trying to come up with impressive
words he hoped his father hadn't heard. As he matured, they still did
things together; Jeffrey didn't just lose his dad but his confidant."
Jeff Jr. also lost a business partner. He and his father had started
DarkPro Films, hoping to produce Jeff Jr.'s dramatic script "White Lies,
Black Fiction."
Not the first blow
Jeff Sr.'s death was neither the first tragedy in the family nor the first
setback to Jeff Jr.'s business career. Cherica Adams was killed in 1999,
while she was the girlfriend of Carolina Panthers player Rae Carruth. (He
was convicted of conspiracy to murder and is serving an 18-year sentence.)
Jeff Sr. stoically took part in the media circus around his eldest
daughter's death; Jeff Jr. lost the sister who might have helped him
kick-start his life in the arts.
"She was going to manage a hip-hop group for me and produce my movies," he
says. "When I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill, I was going to move in with
her. Her passing threw everything out of whack. I didn't write a song for
3 or 4 years. I finished college on time in 2000, because I'd promised her
I would. But I didn't care about it."
Memories of Cherica surfaced during the shooting of "Donor," when he and
his dad discussed her absence for the first time. "Neither of us is real
emotional. We don't talk a lot, we don't cry," says the son. "Now we did."
He and his family often use present tense when they speak of Jeff Sr. He
died Nov. 12 at 48, two weeks after Jeff Jr. and Janalyn watched this film
with strangers for the first time in Asheville.
"Several people said, `I'd never have known the (director) was part of the
family,' because he was able to portray something so personal so
objectively," she says.
"He did the score himself, had no crew to help him, no budget to speak of.
He did the shooting and editing and went to work 9 to 5 (as an insurance
claims adjuster), and he still made time for this."
Facing the camera himself
Moonie appears onscreen in an interview shot by Janalyn, though he hadn't
intended to: "I didn't want to be in the position of editing myself. Some
stuff I said came off sexist; I didn't mean it that way, but I didn't give
my (mom or) sisters a chance to edit themselves. So I had to leave myself
in, looking like a jackass."
He wasn't the only one worried about a screen image. Jeff Sr., he says,
feared people would find him "an overbearing, mean, sick guy. He didn't
agree with a lot the family said - he didn't think he was so controlling -
but he never told me to take anything out."
In the end, Jeff Sr. was the one who sent "Donor" into the world.
His son "wasn't excited about anyone seeing it. People might have said,
`He's a heel, doing this about his own sick father.' You think about that
when you're alone in the editing room at 1 a.m.
"The thing for me was to finish it, to prove I could do the work. I
learned a lot about storytelling, editing. But he told me to send it out,
because I'd spent so much time on it - and it might benefit people going
through all this."
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