The Last Ecstatic Days

Join us for a screening of The Last Ecstatic Days, a powerful film that will inspire new perspectives and ignite meaningful conversations about death, community, and the essence of truly living.

This thought-provoking story speaks directly to the core of our shared humanity, emphasizing the significance of community, our inherent right to honor the rituals of death, and our ability to embrace the mystery of this sacred transition with open hearts.

The evening will be guided by music, storytelling, and the screening of the film.

Your Hosts:

Lindsea is deeply passionate about death and dying, and how keeping Death close can positively impact our lives. She unknowingly guided her mother through her last two weeks of life, staying bedside until her mom took her last breath. This intimate experience inspired Lindsea to delve deeper into the subject of death and to advocate for a more personal, people-centered approach, rather than it being a medical event. Lindsea has completed a short course with The Living/Dying Project USA. She is completing a Death Doula Preparation course with Sacred Circle, UK, and was recently invited to volunteer as an Outreach Producer for The Last Ecstatic Days in South Africa.

Elna believes that death and dying is not a medical issue, but a profound psycho-spiritual rites of passage, hugely negated by society. She has supported and guided parents, friends, families and co-workers across her corporate career and personal life in grief and end-of-life processes. She developed the Courage Triad, a framework for conscious dying, living and grieving, which has been shared in small groups with over 200 people during COVID. She has presented care of the caregiver workshops for various NGOs in both South Africa and Namibia.

Elna is a registered psychologist (MA Org Psy UCT), completed the HOSPICE Palliative Care and bereavement courses, and various professional and alternative healing certificates. She lives a more contemplative life on a smallholding outside Knysna. She has spent the last year studying and volunteering at Frail, Dementia & Alzheimer’s Centres in both South Africa and Namibia, exploring the many faces of death and dying.

Genevieve is a vocalist and songwriter from Cape Town. While studying opera at the University of Cape Town, she became captivated by traditional folk songs and sacred music. Her music speaks to themes of connection, nature, the cycles of life and death, and her personal journey of healing.

Arrival: 18:30

Screening Start: 19:00

We look forward to sharing this deeply transformational event with you.

Synopsis:

Ethan Sisser, a young man with terminal brain cancer, sits alone in his hospital room. When he starts live streaming his death journey on social media, thousands of people from around the world join to celebrate his courage.

Still, Ethan envisions more – to teach the world how to die without fear. To do that, he needs to film his death.

Honoring Ethan's wish, his doctor Aditi Sethi transports him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. What unfolds next is a story rarely glimpsed: how a community of strangers helps a young man die with grace.

A sensory immersion into leaving the body, “The Last Ecstatic Days” reveals a man who will not let us forget him – even after he’s taken his final breath