Dying with Grace
“MAKING A DOCUMENTARY AS INTIMATE as this film requires building relationships,” POV says to director Andrew Moir. “What’s it like to get close to someone when you know they’re dying?”
Moir doesn’t miss a beat while confronting a subject that many people find difficult. “I made a film about a dying person before [2012’s Just as I Remember] and I’m making another movie about someone who died halfway through filming,” says Moir. “It’s just something that has happened in the work that I do. Obviously, it’s very difficult. I develop close relationships with the people in the films I make. I strive for intimate moments, so I inevitably care about them. It was really hard.”
is Moir’s first feature, following shorts including 2019’s festival favourite and 2020’s , which was made for CBC Docs POV. The film returns Moir to the story of Delroy Dunkley, the Jamaican migrant worker who appeared in his 2017 short . The previous film, commissioned for CBC Short Docs, observes Delroy’s struggle with a cancer diagnosis while working on a tobacco farm owned by Moir’s uncle. The feature follows Delroy as he returns to Jamaica and spends his final days with his wife, Sophia, and their children. It’s a frank portrait of death and the grieving process, but also an intimately observed film about what it means to live.
