Dying Alive

Benoît Brière

Canada | V.O. French | 2021 | 35 min | DCP | color | Fiction

Montreal, a multigenerational house loaded with books, paintings, and knick-knacks, so many memories revived on the evening of one last Christmas Eve. Luc, a retired pediatrician and teacher in his eighties, lives with his son François, a pediatrician like his father, and François' wife Esther. The old man has now decided to end his life as he is suffering and physically diminished. In a corrosive and sensitive verbal joust, he asks his son to end his days in privacy. The son then takes him on an existential and circus-like journey through the streets of Montreal where the father is supposed to go to his final destination, a hospital where he will be confronted with his ultimate wish: the choice between the finality of medical assistance to die or a return to square one, the small pleasures of what remains of his life, alive.

Distribution
Director Benoît Brière
Music Christian Thomas
Cinematographer Mario Janelle
Screenplay Jean-François Chicoine
Cast Benoît Brière, Élise Guilbault, Marcel Sabourin
Production Productions Mourir en vie
Distribution Filmoption International