Award-winning documentary filmmaker Chris Farina, in 2016, began work on a new project with the working title “Death Becomes You,” with the idea of tackling what is very much a taboo subject: death.
For obvious reasons, we don’t like talking about it – death – because, while it’s inevitable, it’s, you know, it’s death, the end.
The film, as he envisioned it, at the outset, would have Farina, a 1982 UVA alum, speaking with funeral directors, hospice workers, grief counselors – people whose jobs bring them into daily contact with that which the rest of us don’t want to think about, much less base our lives around.
The goal: to get us thinking, get us talking, and maybe edge us toward accepting death as a natural part of life.
Then, as happens, life intervened.
First, it was other projects – “Seats at the Table,” a documentary on a class taught by UVA lecturer Andrew Kaufman that brought together university students with residents of a maximum-security juvenile correctional center through the study of Russian literature; “Pep Banned,” a doc on the rise and fall of the irreverant University of Virginia Pep Band; “A Bridge to Life,” which tells the story of The Bridge Ministry, a Buckingham County-based ministry that works to save lives of men dealing with serious addiction issues.
Then, the intervention was, life itself.
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Farina was diagnosed with ALS in 2022.
ALS – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – is something we used to know as Lou Gehrig’s disease, because the famed New York Yankee first baseman was the first person that we knew with ALS.
The Mitch Albom bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie put literary weight behind what ALS does to people living with the nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to muscle weakness and other symptoms that get worse over time, and for which, at this writing, there is no cure.
For Farina, the motivation behind “Death Becomes You,” with the ALS diagnosis, moved from the academic to the personal.
“This will be the last documentary I am able to make. With my medical condition, I would be so happy to complete it while I’m still able to,” said Farina, whose team at the Charlottesville-based Rosalia Films is working to complete fundraising to get the film completed and begin distribution.
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Farina’s ALS has progressed to the point where his communication is limited to email, so when I cited his quote above, it was from email, not from a conversation.
Mariah Botkin, an associate producer at Rosalia Films, joined me for a podcast to discuss the effort to bring “Death Becomes Us” to the big screen, and invited Peter Thompson, a longtime friend of Farina, fellow UVA alum, and the former executive director at the Center at Belvedere, a Charlottesville nonprofit that promotes healthy aging for adults 50+, to join in.
Botkin has worked closely with Farina as he has efforted to finish up work on his final film, which she conceded has been made more difficult not just because of Farina’s struggles with ALS.
The subject of the film has taken on that much more meaning for all involved in its production because of what Farina faces every day.
“It makes something that’s, you know, creative, 20 times, 30, 100 times, 1,000 times, more emotional for all of us, which, it can be hard to, you know, get the thing done, because you’re also you have a lot of feelings about it all, at least for me,” Botkin said.
Thompson, who has known Farina since their UVA days, said his friend is the type of person “who everybody remembers when they first meet him” – “so buoyant, upbeat, positive” – qualities that he is maintaining through the progression of ALS.
Farina wanted to take that approach to telling the story of death and dying.
“I remember Chris telling me about this film, just kind of in passing, in one of our chats one day, you know, 10 years or so ago, about how this was one of the films he was thinking of doing,” Thompson said. “And right away I’m, like, oh my gosh, Chris, if you could put your talents to this topic, the world will be a better place, because, you know, in the United States, we have a very dysfunctional relationship with dying, with death, and with aging. I learned that a lot in my 24 years at the center. And we all suffer from it. We suffer from it during life, and we suffer from it when people are in the final stages and then leave us.”
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The interview got emotional, which, totally understandable.
Farina’s friends see every day a person who used to have the biggest smile you will ever see struggle with basic tasks, and they can’t do anything to help.
And so, they’re pouring themselves into getting “Death Becomes Us” to the big screen.
“I’ve been given such a gift of getting to work really closely with Chris, and understanding what his values are, what his goals are, and being able to translate that for him,” Botkin said. “I think what has been really important for me is making sure that I’m retaining his voice and his vision as we share his films more widely with people, and with ‘Death Becomes Us,’ that’s remained incredibly true. It’s very important for me that I am making sure that the film is shared in the way that Chris wants it to be shared.”
“I can’t guarantee anything in life any more than anyone else, but I assured him, I said, we we will raise the money to pay for this film. I will assure you, we will get this done. You focus on your health, your family, and finishing the film,” Thompson said. “And now that we are close to that and talking more about the distribution and working on that and the facilitation and working community partners, he’s so touched to know that that social impact is on its way, and yes, we are also wanting him to experience some of that while we can. That would be meaningful to him. It would be meaningful to me and everybody who’s worked with him to be able to get this out there and start facilitating these conversations to show again the power of Chris Farina’s films to make a difference in the world.”
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Rosalia Films is currently raising funds to support the film’s release to create significant social impact. A generous donor is matching every dollar raised up to $35,000, meaning roughly $5,000 more in new donations would trigger the full match. The goal is to raise the funds quickly, so the film can be shared while Chris is here to see it happen.
Donate (tax-deductible via The Film Collaborative):
thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/deathbecomesus
Trailer: ‘Death Becomes Us’
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Chris Graham
