Dying for Beginners

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, science journalist Kurt Langbein is transformed from observer into patient. In DYING FOR BEGINNERS, he embarks on a journey that is at once deeply personal and essayistic, tracing the line between life and death. Moving between intensive care, palliative medicine, medical ethics, psycho-oncology, spiritual traditions and accounts of near-death experiences, the film explores how our society deals with dying, and what happens when the finiteness of one’s own life is no longer abstract.

Starting from his own medical history and the death of a close friend, Langbein interweaves medical, philosophical and existential perspectives. He speaks with doctors, researchers, end-of-life companions and people who have already come close to death. The result is a multilayered, thoughtful and moving panorama about fear, hope, self-determination, dignity and the question of whether we can learn to let go.

DYING FOR BEGINNERS is a documentary essay about the last great taboo of our time, and at the same time a surprisingly life-affirming film about the art of living with the knowledge of death.