If you were watching BBC Breakfast News yesterday morning, you may have seen film director Steven Eastwood being interviewed about his new film 'Island'. It's 'a life-affirming phenomena of dying' as he follows the last 12 months of four terminally ill patients at the Earl Mountbatten Hospice in Newport on the Isle of Wight, bravely including the moment of death.
I wanted to find out more about the film, and about Steven, and came across a feature he wrote for The Independent last week. In response to his experiences of filming and meeting the patients, he says...
"We fear proximity to death will change us, depress us, forge lasting negative associations with people we love. But it doesn’t. What was it like and how did I feel, when Alan died? I felt elated. Beautiful, unspeakable and strange. To my mind [the film] isn’t harrowing or burdensome. I felt uplifted and empowered by the extraordinary events I was fortunate enough to be invited to bear witness to. I hope that something of that feeling of empowerment has translated to the screen."
The film premieres at the BFI London Film Festival this weekend and I'm hoping it will be available to view in the months to come. In the meantime, if you want to see the full Independent article, you can read it HERE.
