MUCH ADO ABOUT DYING
Friday, March 1 • 4:15 PM • T3
Documentary | East Coast Premiere | Award Winner | LGBTQI Director
Generously sponsored by Ruth Meyler, Patrick McGlone, and Kevin Taylor
Filmmaker Simon Chambers finds his life drastically interrupted when he is called back to London from India to care for his Uncle David, a retired bohemian gay actor. Everything that could go wrong does. David's anarchic spirit is unbreakable. He fights with Simon, refusing to go into a care home, insisting on dying in the squalor of his unheated tumbledown house. He can't remember where he put his false teeth, but he still knows nearly every line from his beloved Shakespeare plays. David's real life starts to echo "King Lear," about an old man going mad and giving away his kingdom, as David starts bestowing thousands of pounds upon a sexy "helper." How do we deal with and care for our relatives who are living longer than ever? How does Simon help David to have a good death? From the makers of YOUNG PLATO (Soilsiú Films).
Credits
Director and Screenwriter: Simon Chambers
Producer: David Rane
Ireland/UK, 2022, color, 84 min. NOT RATED.
Awards
Best Directing - IDFA international Feature Competition 2022, Jury Prize Best Documentary - Merlinka 2023
Reviews
"Death isn’t an ending in this achingly funny-sad film, just an anxiety passed between loved ones."--Guy Lodge, Variety, November, 2022
"Chambers and seasoned documentary editor Claire Ferguson (Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer, Who Killed The KLF?), have woven together a compelling, often humorous and unflinching portrait."--Nikki Baughan, ScreenDaily, November, 2022
🎟 For further information regarding bookings:
Please call 301-495-6720 between M-F, 9 AM - 5:30 PM or email silverinfo@AFI.com
Simon Chambers was a Youth Worker in London for 14 years helping disadvantaged teenagers. In 2004, while a student at the National Film and Television School, he won the Royal Television Society award for best European Student Documentary.
In 2006 his first feature documentary Every Good Marriage Begins With Tears was shown on BBC Storyville, and showed on TV in around 30 countries, winning several prizes at festivals.
In 2009 he completed feature length documentary “Cowboys in India” which has also won several prizes and has shown on TV in UK, USA and India. His short fiction “Playing Dead” showed at Cannes in 2010. He has taught at the National Film and Television School in the UK and at Jamia Millia Islamic University in New Delhi, and made films for Oxfam.
