Chelsea McEvoy, a Kelowna-based director, has done numerous documentaries. Her partner, James Hektner, is president of Accessible Okanagan.
Now they are turning the camera on themselves, with a project focusing on the challenges inter-abled couples like themselves can face when trying to have a baby.
“There isn’t much out there about this topic in particular,” said McEvoy. “It’s very private; it’s a very vulnerable experience, so many people — even able-bodied people — deal with infertility issues.
“One in six deal with infertility issues and it can be very isolating.”
No stranger to sharing their relationship, the director also co-founded an online community in which women with a partner in a wheelchair can come together and share their experiences.
A grant from Telus then helped take the blog to the screen to talk infertility.
“I really didn’t want to turn the camera onto myself and tell our story. It’s a very personal and private topic that no one really wants to talk about,” McEvoy explained. “But James and I are really big believers in education and peer support.
“So, when we started going through this process, I started turning the camera on ourselves before this was a thing because I thought someone might want to see this one day.”
The documentary was shot by a friend and cinematographer with whom McEvoy has worked several times before. He followed them everywhere, including fertility clinic appointments.
“We had to speak before about the fact that I am going to be there and we need to be comfortable and did a lot of work before to get each other comfortable with the material,” said Ryan Tebbutt, director and cinematographer. “And I am more or less a fly on the wall and it’s really kudos to Chelsea and James — and especially James, because he isn’t in this world of making documentaries.
“He was just a really good sport.”
They now hope the film will help the widest audience possible and have distributed it to spinal cord clinics to show people what life can be like after an injury.
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