TIFF '24: The Art of Dying in One's Own Terms
Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 9:00PM 
THE ROOM NEXT DOOR won the Golden Lion on the same day it first screened at TIFF.
Whether programmed with that intention or bonded by coincidence, one can often find films in conversation at festivals. Echoed themes and varied approaches to the same idea occur, often across sections, tying works together that were never meant to be considered in those terms. Some might disagree, but I find it to be a valuable experience, oft conducive to deeper thought, comparison and contrast. At this year's TIFF, for example, mortality was on many an artist's mind, from Godard, knowingly at the end of his rope, to the apocalyptic visions of Oppenheimer, Ostrikov, and Thibault Emin. From Cannes, there came meditations from Cronenberg and Schrader, films laden with grief, loss, and the need to take control. In documentary land, there are the recollections of an erstwhile death row inmate in The Freedom of Fierro.
Still, the most apparent conversation partners were two Spanish filmmakers, Pedro Almodóvar and Carlos Marques-Marcet, telling two euthanasia stories in The Room Next Door and They Will Be Dust…