The Departure

Date: Monday, December 4, 2017

Time: 7pm

Location: Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

Director(s): Lana Wilson

Film Details: 87 minutes, 2017, USA, color, DCP

Film Website | Tickets | Facebook Event

World Premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Official Selection of the 2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest and 2017 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival.

Filmmaker Lana Wilson will attend in person for discussion with Paul Turano, filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College.

About the Film:

Ittetsu Nemoto, a former punk-turned-Buddhist-priest in Japan, has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between his patients and himself. The Departure captures Nemoto at a crossroads, when his growing self-destructive tendencies lead him to confront the same question his patients ask him: what makes life worth living?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Nhl2QmTpI

“Immensely moving. Lyrical and deeply meditative… digs deep into major questions without being afraid of the answers.” – IndieWire

About the Filmmaker(s):

Lana Wilson (Director/Producer) is an Emmy-winning filmmaker based in New York. Her first film, After Tiller, went inside the lives of the four most-targeted abortion providers in the country and was critically acclaimed for providing a moving and complex look at one of the most incendiary issues of our time. After Tiller, which was co-directed by Martha Shane, premiered at Sundance in 2013 and was theatrically released by Oscilloscope in 50 U.S. cities. It was nationally broadcast on PBS’s POV and won a 2015 Emmy Award for Best Documentary. It was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, four Cinema Eye Honors, a Satellite Award, and the Ridenhour Prize.

Recently, Wilson wrote and produced “Jacked,” the premiere episode of the National Geographic Channel miniseries I Am Rebel, executive-produced by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and Matt Wolf (Teenage). “Jacked” is about Louis Moore, who hijacked a plane in 1972 to seek revenge on the City of Detroit for police brutality. While making The Departure, she also story produced segments for National Geographic Explorer, cable television’s longest-running documentary series. Wilson was previously the Film and Dance Curator for Performa, the New York biennial of new visual art performance, where she curated retrospectives including Not Funny: Stand-Up Comedy and Visual Art, Futurism on Film, and Dance After Choreography. Wilson has taught master classes and workshops at UnionDocs and DCTV, and given lectures at a range of contemporary art and film institutions. She holds a B.A. in Film Studies and Dance from Wesleyan University.

Screens with:

THE WINDMILL
2 min | 2007 | Daniel Sousa | HD

Sound Design by Dan Golden

“A short film based on a childhood memory. As a child, I would run to this abandoned windmill whenever I wanted to be alone. It stood at the edge of the woods and in my mind it demarcated the boundary between civilization and a more primal, spiritual realm. This started as a study for FERAL, but evolved into its own project. However, The notion of the windmill as a talismanic portal remained in the final film.” – D.S.