Part of Reimagine End of Life
Saturday, November 3, 2018, 6:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Bartos Screening Room

With directors John Bruce and Pawel Wojtasik in person

Dirs. John Bruce, Pawel Wojtasik. 2017, 91 mins. Digital projection. End of Life is the product of four years spent by John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik with five individuals at various stages in the process of dying. The filmmakers trained to be end-of-life doulas and documented hundreds of hours of interactions with their subjects. The doula works with the dying person, along with those surrounding him or her, to help design, guide and support their wishes for a “good death.” The film employs an immersive, participatory approach intended as an invitation for viewers to explore their body, their senses, and their ability to be present in relation to their own mortality. Bruce and Wojtasik became increasingly interested in visceral, primal responses to mortality, and during their shooting process these responses became their own. There is an openness, even a certain willed ambivalence, to this approach that reflects the unique quality of life in its final phase, when the mundane and the significant seem to flow seamlessly, one into the other. The two Greek words differentiating time, chronos (clock time) and kairos (the supreme moment), reflect the durational form of the film, the disruption of sequential logics at the end of life and the emergence of temporal poetics.

Tickets: $10 (a limited number of free tickets are available for Museum members at the Film Lover and Kids Premium levels; members may contact [email protected] with ticket requests). Tickets must be purchased in advance online via the Reimagine End of Life website.   

Ticket purchase includes same-day admission to the Museum (see gallery hours). View the Museum’s ticketing policy here. For more information on membership and to join online, visit our membership page.