Documentary brings forth tough conversations

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This article was published 15/10/2021 (1462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new documentary is shedding light on death — and what it truly means to live.

Filmmaker Randy Guest teamed up with local organization Palliative Care Manitoba to create On Living and End of Life. The short film was created through the Winnipeg Arts Council’s WITH ART Community Public Art Program, which pairs organizations and artists of various forms.

“The documentary is about the services Palliative Care Manitoba offers but also the variable they deal with, such as grieving and how people handle end of life,” Guest told The Sou’wester.

It’s a sensitive topic Guest hadn’t considered exploring before Palliative Care Manitoba asked him to take part in the project.

“But, as it turns out, I have a tremendous interest in this,” Guest said. “Yes, it’s a sombre topic, but I really find myself driven by human stories and stories of emotion that bring community together.”

When Guest first entered filmmaking, he assumed he’d be most interested in fiction, but his career ended up being the opposite.

“I just love stories of the journey of life, and in this case the end of the journey of life,” Guest said.

Guest said he learned a lot about end of life while working on the project, including things he had never previously considered when it comes to palliative care.

“First and foremost, there is no template for how we handle end of life,” Guest said. “It’s a journey that it’s impossible to really know how you’ll deal with it until you’re dealing with it.”

The volunteers with Palliative Manitoba are also taught things like silence being important and respectful, Guest added.

“You want to allow people to just go through what they’re going through in the way they want to,” he said.

“I was also surprised to learn how much positivity and celebration the staff have in their job and their daily lives. It’s not as dark of a place you might think.”

The documentary took longer to complete than usual due to COVID-19 public health orders. The team was in suspension for at least a year and a half, Guest said.

“I couldn’t interview people and I had a difficult time organizing things with my editor,” Guest said. “It ended up being a three-year process.”

The documentary features patients, families and health-care workers through structured sections.

“I really wanted to discover the different elements I thought meant the most and had to be addressed the most,” Guest said.

The film begins with Palliative Care Manitoba staff introducing themselves and their workplace before moving onto the grief process. Dozens of staff members, volunteers, patients and board members were interviewed for the documentary.

Emotionally, it was a dfficult experience for Guest.

“In some ways, it was surprising how not bleak it could be at times, because there was a lot of perspective shed on end of life,” Guest said. “It’s a natural part of living and we all go through it.”

Now that the project is complete, Guest said, he finds himself giving more thought to his own mortality and those of his loved ones.

“It’s something I think about more but is also something I know more about, but there’s fewer bleaker parts than I would have thought,” he said.

More information can be found at www.winnipegarts.ca/wac/artwork/on-living-and-the-end-of-life