Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Thursday, March 1:
INTO THE NIGHT: PORTRAITS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Director:
Helen Whitney
Premiere:
FilmColumbia 2017
Select Festivals:
Austin, Hamptons Take 2 Docs
About:
Nine diverse perspectives on dying, death, and the afterlife.
Through the varied experiences of her subjects, individuals who each either interact with death in their work or who have had confronted mortality in their personal lives, Whitney presents an intimate meditation on the fundamental mystery and certainty of our fleeting existence. Those interviewed – including a mortician, a Baptist minister, a heart surgeon, a cryonicist, and an ex-radical Islamist – share deeply personal and often affecting stories, spurring consideration of what it means to both live and die with dignity and purpose. While not without flaws – in particular, a surfeit of unnecessary narration, a too-long running time at over two hours, and the fatigue that often results from survey-driven projects – Whitney has crafted a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, film about a universal, but often deliberately avoided, topic.
what (not) to doc 