CASE STUDY JEAN-FRANCOIS RODRIGUES
FEATURE FILM FOCUS
Faced with what he saw as a lack of understanding about the provision of palliative care, Jean-Francois Rodrigues decided tomake a film, which swiftly turned into his first fully fledged feature
WORDS JEAN-FRANCOIS RODRIGUES
T he level of social injustice that can be found in our society these days might, ironically, be seen as somewhat of a blessing if you happen to be a documentary filmmaker looking for a subject to pick up. However, it’s not so great if the story happens to be on your own doorstep, which is the situation I found myself in recently. On the face of it, there’s nothing especially unusual about my story. My mother, at the impressive age of 93, succumbed to the dreaded ‘C’ word. Thankfully her time in hospital was short, as was her suffering, but the experience highlighted the lack of care I perceived
she received during that time and, as a filmmaker concerned with social issues, I felt compelled to do something about it. For decades, documentary filmmakers have utilised their skills to right injustices in society. In my situation, the injustice as I saw it was my mother in her last days of life failing to receive the care she “Concernedwith social issues, I felt compelled to do something about it”
deserved, while I remained oblivious to what was going on. The thing is, I had no understanding of what constituted palliative, or end of life, care, but as I dug deeper I realised that I was not alone in my ignorance. In fact, not understanding what palliative care is and what it has to offer to someone in their final days is widespread throughout the UK population. So, what would my role be in this overall narrative? I consider myself to be a competent photographer but a novice filmmaker – a view borne out, perhaps, by what were, at the time, my two three- minute documentaries that had gathered a miserly 20 YouTube views between
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PRO MOVIEMAKER SUMMER 2019
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