ISLAND

dir. Steven Eastwood

90 mins, 2017

Across the water on the island, four individuals experience the year in which their lives will end. Illness progresses, relationships gently shift, and we are witness to rarely seen and intensely private moments. One person shares their acceptance of death, whilst another is surrounded by a community in shock. ISLAND observes bedside care and the rhythm of breathing. In a pathology lab, microscopic biopsies in close-up show the interior of bodies, our biology. Filmed over 12 months on the Isle of Wight, ISLAND is a life-affirming reflection on the phenomena of dying, portraying the transition away from personhood and observing the last days and hours of life and the moment of death. Like the ferries cyclically arriving and departing in this an enigmatic landscape, the film appears buoyant, afloat. Death is shown to be natural and everyday but also unspeakable and strange.

Supported by Arts Council England, National Lottery Big Lottery Fund, FREEFOLK, CODA, Mountbatten Hospice, FABRICA and Queen Mary University London.

Awards

BFI London Film Festival | Rotterdam International Film Festival

BIFA Best Documentary nominee

Winner of Queen Mary University London's Public Engagement Award 2018

Winner of Belfast Film Festival's Maysles Brother's Award for Observational Documentary

Reviews

★★★★★ "A memento mori in a pretty direct form" The Sunday Times

★★★★ "Hauntingly evocative" The Guardian

"Dignified and poetic" Total Film

"Disarmingly intimate" Sight & Sound Magazine

"Full of beauty and devastation" Filmoria

Curriculum

ISLAND education toolkit designed to enhance healthcare professionals' understanding of death and dying. The resource is aimed at trainee and qualified medical doctors, nurses and palliative care professionals.

"In my thirty-year career in palliative care, I have become increasingly exasperated by inaccurate, misleading and over-dramatised screen portrayals of dying. I am excited to say that here, at last, is a film to set the record straight."
— Dr Kathryn Mannix, author, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, award-winning author of With The End in Mind

The ISLAND toolkit was supported by QMUL and created with the palliative care physician and bestselling author Dr Kathryn Mannix, who also contributes an essay to the toolkit. The toolkit developed and piloted in 2019 with the support of 150 trainee doctors and nurses at Barts Health NHS Trust QMUL, Martlets Hospice & Sussex NHS Trust, Mountbatten Hospice and St Oswald's Hospice.

You can view the Toolkit here.

To enquire about purchasing an educational screener of ISLAND and/or building an event around the toolkit, please register your interest here.

"One of the most gratifying and eye-opening moments during my medical training came when watching the film ISLAND; it really highlighted that hospices are places of living."
— Medical Student