Film at St Francis came about following a chance conversation between myself and hospice director Dr Ros Taylor back in 2010. Ros had just returned from a conference in Montreal and spoke of a presentation on the use of film in hospices by staff and patients. She wondered whether something similar could be set up at St Francis.
The first film we showed was ‘The doctor’ starring William Hurt. Based on the book ‘A taste of my own medicine’ by Dr Edward Rosenbaum, it is the story of a doctor who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and becomes a patient himself. Extracts from the film are often used for training purposes.
The first few films had similar medical themes and the different perspectives on them. The screenings were initially open to staff and volunteers on a drop-in basis and were a qualified success. People seemed to attend according to the perceived central theme of the film, perhaps regarding the film as chosen to stimulate guided reflection on an aspect of practice.
The film evenings began to take off when the event fell more in-line with the development of the hospice as a community venue, part of the community engagement strategy. The screenings were open to all, advertised on the hospice’s website and a programme of better known films was created for a whole calendar year. A donation of £5 covers the cost of a glass of wine, nibbles and a comfy chair.
The overall aim of the project remained the same however – to screen films broadly related to the work of the hospice. The films are about death, dying, ageing, illness and loss but they are also about love, relationships, compassion, care and the passage of time.
The audience
The film evening is now an established event in the hospice calendar. It attracts a public audience of regulars and also people new either to the event or the hospice. It feels like an inclusive group, a mixture of the bereaved, carers, volunteers, local people and staff.
Recently a hospice outpatient enquired about the 2015 programme and has planned to come along with her family.
One man, whose wife died at the hospice in 2013, said it was like “therapy”, explaining: “well it gets me out of the house and it feels like I am supporting in some small way the place where my wife died.”
Another attendee, whose mother died at the hospice, when asked about the programme said that he found the films sad but also uplifting adding: “If these films aren’t appropriate here, where are they appropriate? Besides, we wouldn’t come if we didn’t want to.”
It seems, for these people, coming back to the hospice when they want to in an informal way is as important as the films they come for.
The films
The programme is loosely seasonal. For example, January, the month of resolutions, seems a good time to screen ‘The bucket list’. February, the month in which Valentine’s Day falls, felt the right time to show ‘Beginners’, a film about a young man who falls in love around the same time his father comes out as gay and learns he has terminal cancer. ‘Regeneration’, which concludes with the death of the war poet Wilfred Owen was shown in November 2014.
There are sad coincidences too, the first film on the programme after Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death happened to be his ‘A late quartet’.
Now that the film evening is established, there is scope for including lesser known films that might be regarded as more challenging, such as ‘Dreams of a life’, about a young woman who dies alone in her London flat and is not discovered for three years, ‘Stories we tell’, about a woman who discovers after her mother’s death that her father is not her biological father, and ‘Rabbit hole’, Nicole Kidman’s brave film about a couple grieving for their five year old son killed in a road accident.
The film evening is now trusted to put on films that although might not be an easy watch are thoughtfully chosen.
A particularly popular feature of the programme is December’s ‘A classic at Christmas’ slot. People who knew of the film but had never seen it before were surprised by the original ‘Goodbye, Mr Chips’ in which an elderly man on his deathbed reflects on the life he has lived and his young wife and baby who both died many years before in childbirth. There is a poignancy in ‘Casablanca’, a possible old family favourite and another ‘Classic at Christmas’, to think that all its wonderful actors are no longer alive.
Death and the passing of time
Some film theorists hold that death and the passing of time are at the heart of film and photography. The camera captures lives and their moments and in many ways does not distinguish between actors in fictional films and their characters, between fact and fiction. An old family photo album or home movies can also bring this idea out. Some people are still alive, older and changed, and some are not.
One can also think of the Mitchell and Kenyon films discovered in a basement in 1994 after over a hundred years. Children from 1897 stare out of the screen at us. There is a fascination in wondering what might have become of them in the intervening years, these long since dead people captured living in their lost worlds. We cannot but think also of our own lives, places in history and mortality. Some theorists think there is something of this in all filmed or photographed images regardless of the content or age.
Good films will continue to arouse thoughts and feelings around life’s big themes such as death, dying, love, care and loss whether watched in a hospice or elsewhere. Their appeal is magical and elusive. Experiencing them and sharing them can be as enriching as discussing them. Discussion does take place but it tends to be informal during refreshments either before or after the film. No doubt people also think about and discuss the films elsewhere.
Now in its fifth year the monthly film evening has become part of the life of St Francis. There are plans for a family film day on Saturday mornings for children.
Dr Taylor is convinced other hospices could be inspired to do the same. All you need is decent equipment, a comfortable room and perhaps a film enthusiast capable of putting together an appropriate programme. Why not screen some films at your hospice, see who comes and see what happens?
More information on the monthly film night is available on the St Francis website and you can also download a list of the the films which have been shown (and the those planned for 2015).
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