END OF LIFE
2017 · 91 minutes · Digital Video, 16mm film
Directed by John A. Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik
Produced by Athina Tsangari, Ian Hassett: HAOS Film; John Bruce, and Paweł Wojtasik: Train-Tracks, Inc.
Cast: Ram Dass, Sarah Grossman, Matt Freedman, Doris Johnson, Carol Virostek
Editing: Ian Hassett
Distributed by Grasshopper Film
Made over six years with five individuals approaching death, End of Life is an immersive meditation on presence, care, and mortality. After training as end-of-life doulas, John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik developed the film through extended, collaborative encounters with its participants, attending to the ways ordinary gestures, silence, intimacy, and time are transformed near the end of life.
About the Film
End of Life emerged from six years spent by John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik with five people at different stages of dying. In preparation, the filmmakers trained as end-of-life doulas, learning forms of care centered on listening, presence, and supporting each person’s wishes for what a good death might mean.
The film developed through sustained and collaborative encounters rather than conventional interviews or explanation. Its immersive, participatory approach draws the viewer close to bodies, rooms, gestures, sounds, and intervals of silence, creating an experience of mortality that is sensory as well as reflective.
As ordinary actions and profound transitions flow into one another, sequential time begins to loosen. The film attends to the coexistence of chronos—measured, everyday time—and kairos, the charged moment in which time seems to deepen or open. Rather than presenting death as an event at the end of life, End of Life explores dying as a lived process shaped by intimacy, uncertainty, care, and presence.
Watch the Film
Available to stream or purchase through:
Amazon Prime
Apple TV
Grasshopper Film
Selected Press
“Life Before Death: John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik Interviewed” — BOMB
“Get Real” — Leo Goldsmith, Artforum
“End of Life: Film Review” — The Hollywood Reporter
Installation and Performance
The wider End of Life project has also taken the form of immersive installations, performances, and collaborative events. These include an installation curated by Equitable Vitrines in Los Angeles, (IM)MORTALITY at Park Place Gallery in New York, and film-performance works created with artist Matt Freedman.
Selected Screenings
Doclisboa. (World premiere), 2017
Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, 2018
Cinéma du Réel, 2018
New York Film Festival, (US Premiere), 2018
Museum of the Moving Image, 2018
ICA London, 2019
e-flux, 2019
End of Life Project
For the complete project archive—including press, screenings, installation and performance versions, discussions, and additional materials—visit the dedicated End of Life website.
