This story originally appeared in the Guild & Critics Awards/Documentarys edition of TheWrap Awards Magazine.
In 2021, director Ondi Timoner’s ailing 92-year-old father, Eli Timoner, who had been partially paralyzed since he had a stroke at age 53, announced that he wanted to end his life with a medically assisted death. Helmsman (Dig!, we live in public) filmed his final weeks in a tender and surprisingly intimate film.
How did you decide to start filming?
When my father was admitted to the hospital with respiratory problems, it was not due to COVID, but it was
It was during COVID. So there was no way to see it. And after a few days in bed like a paralytic
who was 92 years old and was not going to walk again, declared that he really wanted to die. he was the
most tenacious person we have ever met, so we never expected him to suddenly do this.
choice. But there was no hesitation.
And I panicked because I don’t have any recollection of him before his stroke, which is when
It was half past 9. I can’t remember her physical body moving like an able-bodied person, so she was
terrified of forgetting him and forgetting his voice and forgetting his personality. And when my brother found
that the End of Life Option Act existed in California and that dad could come home by this 15-
one day waiting period, I had this crazy, intense, unstoppable urge to film it.
It amazes me that this film exists because even the need to set up cameras felt wrong. I like it
maybe I was mediating my own experience and trying to hide behind the camera, or maybe I was
it’s going to interrupt the experience of dad or my brothers or my mom. I did not want to negatively affect
no one, but I also felt like this had to be done, and I just didn’t know why. My movies are often like
that. They chart life as it unfolds. And then talking to him, I said, “Dad, I feel like I have to install cameras.” And he said, “Instinctively I know you’re on the right track.”
Your family seemed so open to what was happening and willing to be transparent.
(Timoner’s sister) Rachel wanted this to remain private and didn’t think there should be cameras.
But daddy wanted him and mommy wanted him. And even as we got closer to his death, he felt my
brother jump behind the camera if his kids were talking to dad, because he was like, that’s all we are
it will be gone. Suddenly it became so precious to everyone.
Rachel asked me to make a video when dad died for the Zoom memorial. It was supposed to be
five minutes long, and it became this 32-minute video in a week. I mean, he was alive inside the
Avid, and I could just sit and watch him and be with him in this way where he doesn’t feel pain. It’s
It was magic, absolute magic. She couldn’t stop editing. This is how the 32-minute film came about, and the
memorial was turned into a movie screening. And then I went ahead and it kind of blew right through me. me
I don’t really know how to explain it. I feel like he is part dad at work. It’s dad and me in
combination, almost.
Read more from the Guild & Critics Awards/Documentaries edition here.