Saturday May 31 | 12:30 pm | Pacific Cinémathèque

Director: Antonio P. Canet, Spain, 2007, 90 minutes

Many of us have questions about dying: what happens, what it will feel like for us and what it feels like for people we care for and about. Death is an event in life; one we will all experience perhaps as a witness and certainly as the one dying. The Wings of Life does what perhaps documentary film can do better than any other medium—it gives us a window on events and experiences we cannot always get close to.

Carlos Cristos and his family and friends bring us into an intimate, thoughtful and loving process. Cristos, a physician, is dying sooner than anyone expected. The healer became the patient with the announcement of a diagnosis of Multiple System Atrophy (M.S.A.).

Cristos has been a passionate scientist, musician, hang-glider and mountain climber. He has been a regular contributor to Spanish National Radio, with a program about health, through which he has been both teacher and advocate.

Now Cristos is living his death with his friend and film director, Antonio P. Canet, as companion on his unique journey. The film begins in 2003 and moves through time with Carlos as he reflects on the big questions about living and dying. He speaks with philosophers; he visits his parents; he goes once again to a favourite launching spot for hang gliding.

Carlos’s determination to live his death with dignity and purpose offers us an advance look at the journey each of us will take in our own way.

Director Biography

Antoni Canet is a director, producer and writer of documentaries and commercials for local government, television and feature film. He has also taught film direction at the Menendez Pelayo Internation University of Valencia and the Drama Studies University of Valencia.

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