Wednesday, October 28, 2020

SpiderMable web-swings onto big screen in new film about Edmonton cancer survivor

CBC/Radio-Canada

© Min Dhariwal/CBC Spider-Man joined SpiderMable in 2015 to fight crime for a day in Edmonton.

Five years after the story of an Edmonton cancer fighter took off across social media around the world, a documentary about SpiderMable will premiere next week.

The film, SpiderMable — A Real Life Superhero Story, is about Mable Tooke, a young cancer patient who lived out her dream of fighting crime alongside Spider-Man in 2015, as part of a city-wide manhunt set up by The Children's Wish Foundation.

Kelly Wolfert, the director and producer of the film, said when he started filming the day for Children's Wish and saw how popular it became on Twitter, he thought it would be an interesting subject for a short film.

But he knew it would be an even stronger film once he saw how selfless Mable was in giving back to her community afterward.

"You can't get a better message than what's in this film for what we're going through right now which is basically look after each other," said Wolfert, who was interviewed Tuesday on CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

The film opens at Metro Cinema on Nov. 5, the opening night of NorthwestFest.

On that fateful day in 2015, Mayor Don Iveson summoned Mable to Edmonton city hall to track down a missing hockey player and capture his kidnapper.

"I just remember waking up and being told 'Get into your Spider-Man costume, we're going somewhere.' The day went by in a wonderful haze," Mable said Tuesday on Edmonton AM.

Mable had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, in 2013.

While in treatment, she read comic books. Her favourites were 1960s-era Spider-Man because of how close he was to being human, her mother said at the time.

Mable's mother, Lisa Tooke, said it was odd to see that day through another set of eyes on screen.

The way Mable's journey blew up on social media showed the value of a feel-good story, Lisa said. The day was also helpful in Mable's own journey to recovery, she added.

"She saw a lot more potential in herself than she ever would have," Lisa said. "Because when other people see something in [you], it makes you realize that maybe you can do more than you thought you could."

As for Mable, nowadays she's feeling a lot better. She is 11 years old now and doing her Grade 6 studies online.

"Even if I'm not physically going out in my SpiderMable costume, I'll always have a little bit of SpiderMable in my heart," Mable said.

"It's not something you can let go of."

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