Film changes course -- and lives

It was supposed to be a documentary about his father’s struggle to lose weight, but when Scott Gerow was diagnosed with brain cancer the focus of his life and his much-celebrated film changed.

“Mind Over Matter” also ended up changing the lives of those closest to him.

Gerow died in October of 2000, two years after he started filming his father. He was only 27 and had moved back in with his mother in Huntington Harbour at the time.

Gerow’s friend Megan Schoenbachler, who produced her first film on a less than shoe-string budget, finished “Mind Over Matter.”

She went through the 40 hours of footage shot by Gerow, working with editor Chelsea Low and Gerow’s best buddy Stephen Anderson. Together, they distilled it into a 40-minute documentary that won the special jury selection award at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival Sept. 13.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

“It’s one of those films that you call a ‘labor of love’ ” Schoenbachler said. “He [Gerow] had a really grand plan of what he wanted, and he trusted me to get it done for him.”

Gerow had a long love affair with film. And great success. He graduated from the cinema program at San Francisco State University, and his thesis documentary “No U-Turn” premiered at an independent film festival in San Francisco.

“No U-Turn” went on to win the Director’s Citation award at Black Maria Film Festival in New Jersey.

With “Mind Over Matter,” Gerow initially just wanted to help his father with his obesity, remembers Anderson. Gerow simply intended to get his father under a doctor’s care and document his weight loss. But as he saw his father’s health deteriorating, he saw the film as a way to help him repair his strained relationship with his father, Anderson said.

It became a spiritual journey for Gerow and his family and friends.

Then Gerow had his own health problem to battle.

“At some point, he accepted that he wasn’t going to make it,” Anderson said. “It was very tough for him to do that.”

In the film, Gerow’s mother, Sue Berman, breaks down as she talks about his positive attitude and his fighting spirit.

“He incorporated both of their struggles, with each one fighting with their disease,” Berman said. “He really felt he was going to be able to fight it.”

Gerow’s parents divorced during the making of the film and he moved with his mother to Huntington Harbour. Berman felt she could no longer cope with her ex-husband Dave Gerow’s struggle with his weight. Piled on top of that was the strain of her son’s illness and her responsibility as the family’s sole breadwinner.

“I really needed to move on with my life,” Berman said.

Dave Gerow did manage to lose about 30 to 40 pounds, from a high of about 360 pounds.

Berman chooses now to cherish the sweet memories. She makes a living as a hypnotherapist, but she works just as hard at fulfilling her son’s dream of finding a wide audience for “Mind Over Matter.” That second job’s easy, she said.

“The thing that’s helped the film is it’s touched a lot of people in a lot of ways and levels,” Berman said.

Schoenbachler agrees the film deserves the recognition because “it has life lessons for everyone.”

“I think it just gives us a message of how precious life is and to seize the day when we have it.”

Anderson still maintains the website that Gerow founded, yasg.com. It’s an acronym for Young Adults Surviving Glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain tumor that affects children and young adults, according to the National Brain Tumor Foundation’s website.

Gerow’s website was a way to help other young people share resources, experiences and information about the cancer. And now his film contributes to the effort, too. Proceeds from sales of “Mind Over Matter” DVDs will be donated to the National Brain Tumor Foundation.