Santa Monica Public Library will present a screening and discussion of the documentary Living While Dying (2017) on Saturday, January 11, at 2 p.m. in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium at the Main Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica.
Filmmaker Cathy Zheutlin chronicles the experiences of several people living with terminal illness who greet the inevitable with courage, humor, creativity and acceptance. Her curiosity about death leads her to seek the advice of an aboriginal elder and a deathwalker in Australia, witness a mass cremation in Bali, and ask her 90-year old mother to sit in a coffin while discussing end-of-life wishes.
Zheutlin says that many of us are scared of death; we feel unprepared both for our own deaths and the deaths of people (and animals) we love. Living While Dying invites us to re-imagine our own inevitable ending in new ways. Following the screening Delia Cortez shares about her work as a Palliative Care Social Worker at UCLA Medical Center. Palliative Care teams work with chronically, critically or terminally ill patients to better understand what is important to them. The goal is to provide the best quality of life possible by ensuring comfort and dignity throughout the disease process.
Please join organizers in learning more about end-of-life planning and local resources. This screening is free and open to all ages. Seating is limited and on a first-arrival basis. The Santa Monica Public Library is wheelchair accessible. For disability-related accommodations, call Library Administration at (310) 458-8606 at least one week prior to the event. The Main Library is served by Big Blue Bus routes 1, R10 and 18. Ride your bike. Bicycle parking racks are available at the library.
Submitted by Jennifer Boyce
