Favat directed the piece, which ran in November on an MTV True Life special and which follows the last years of Pamela Laffin, who began smoking at age 10 and who died last fall at age 31 after several excruciating years of suffering from smoking-related illness. Favat began documenting Laffin's plight when she was 29 and he was working on anti-smoking efforts for the American Legacy Foundation (see Boards June/01).

"I wanted to do a project that showed people what it was like," says Favat. "Here's a woman who at 29 was told she had two years left to live." Favat spent many hours recording Laffin and her two children and Laffin herself maintained a video diary of her battle to stay alive.

The film presents Laffin's account of her first foray into cigarette-smoking, induced in part by her emulation of the Sandy character in Grease, who, of course, goes from ostracized good girl to popular skanky girl with the addition of smokes and spandex. Laffin suffered bronchial difficulties throughout her life and was diagnosed with emphysema at 24. She later underwent a lung transplant that rendered her virtually housebound and with an onerous drug regimen that disfigured her face and resulted in ceaseless shakes. Thereafter, her body rejected the transplant and she died a painful death.

The footage of Laffin is cut with appropriate music (e.g.. Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Scar Tissue," and Prodigy's "Breathe") and a variety of smoking-related material, including clips of a Phillip Morris executive comparing cigarette addiction to a fondness for gummy bears, old Virginia Slims and Marlboro commercials and graphic medical accounts of the impact of smoking on lungs.

"I Can't Breathe" was edited by Shondra Burke and produced out of Arnold by Amy Favat and Mark Hankey. DP was Carlos Bermudez and MTV producer was Andrew Huang.