War in the Blood — ARTHUR CARY

An intimate, feature-length documentary following two patients through groundbreaking ‘first in-human’ trials for CAR T-cell therapy, a treatment described as the beginning of the end of cancer.

Not allowed to meet and separated by two floors of a hospital, 53-year-old Graham and 18-year old-Mahmoud are nevertheless bound together by their commitment to the treatment and their faith in the science. Terminally ill, the trial represents their only option. How do their ages and life experiences affect their physical and emotional response?

For Martin Pule, the scientist who has developed the treatment, the responsibility of curing patients is both exciting and daunting. He knows he stands on the cusp of a breakthrough that could radically change the way we treat cancer.

At the heart of this film is the complex relationship between the patients and the clinical team. How much hope can the patients be given when they are effectively going into these trials as human guinea pigs? The patients and clinical team must weigh up hope with realism and their response is a profound and revealing reflection of the human condition.

Press:

“The next time someone boasts to me that they don’t have a TV in their house because ‘it’s all rubbish’, I shall point them to War in the Blood. How could you not want to watch this symphony to human courage, endurance, scientific ambition and genius? Even if it does leave you wrung out with sadness.”
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The Times

“At an hour and 40 minutes, it was a film that was able to do justice to all its parts. It twined them round each other immaculately, keeping the march of the days and the clinical results clear to the uninitiated viewer without losing sight of the intimacy between everyone involved, or distancing the viewers from Graham or Mahmoud’s experiences, which lay at the heart of everything.”
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The Guardian

“During the course of a film almost too gruelling to bear at times, we learned things even close friends might not have known about Graham and the programme’s second subject, 18-year-old schoolboy Mahmoud.”
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The Daily Mail

“Arthur Cary’s approach was contemplative, measured and reminiscent of his very different take on resilience in the face of suffering, the Holocaust documentary The Last Survivors. Again, the material was given room to breathe, with interviews that probed his subjects gently, but at length. The results made for wrenching viewing.”
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The Telegraph