End Game

I am very fresh from grieving three loses in my family. Two of those from cancer. This documentary touches on the realities of the disease and i felt some sort of relief in understanding the last moments which unfortunately i was unable to see of my own relatives.

Its very tastefully delivered and answers some questions about loss and death itself.

What a beautiful piece. Which made "The end game" seem like the start of a new journey.

Over the years, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have made documentaries usually focusing on LGBT topics (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet, State of Pride, etc)*. With the Academy Award-nominated "End Game", they look at a different topic: death. This production focuses on palliative care, forcing the viewer to think differently about death. After all, it's a topic that we try to avoid, but it will eventually happen to every one of us.

Serious but calm, the documentary is one that every person should see.

*Without Friedman, Epstein directed "The Times of Harvey Milk", a documentary about the assassinated gay politician.

This poignant documentary by Rod Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman follows the lives of people with terminal illnesses in San Francisco, California. Each one is consulted by hospital staff to try a new way of dealing with their situation, some are led to the Zen Project runned by Dr. Miller, who had a near death at age 19.I

This film tries to show their non traditional methods, separating it from a traditional hospice situation. But one story stands out is Mirta, an Iranian woman dealing with Cancer. It's such a sad situation of her relationship with her family, and their struggles to Mirta's possible mortality. She is offered the way of the Zen Project and other surgeries.

In the end, each person is shown on how they dealing with their terminal medical condition, as they deal with understanding death as a human process.

I am a hospice worker and this accurately portrays how we, as health care and palliative care teams are working to change the end of life experience. If you have ever wondered what the end could be, look at this beautifully told story.

"We are wired to run away from death but dying is a part of life. " This is a story of four terminally ill patients are about to reach their destination.. who are ready to embark upon a new unknown journey that would relieve them from all the sufferings. Conversations with them, interviews with some of their families as the patients spend their final moments with them.. the candid conversations about the end of a life .. it is surely a tough watch but this short doc is a reminder of the inevitable.. as the healthy ones keep thinking about how to live by all worldly avaricious norms, the sicks just want to live ...it is made in a verite style that this bitter truth that we often brush aside would nudge you that it is going to meet you at the end of the path..

• Purvi.