“We’re all going to die.”  It’e easy to say it.  But how many, especially in present-day Western culture, really know this?  How has it become possible to be a so-called adult in our time, and not know it? Griefwalker, Tim Wilson’s feature length NFB documentary, sets its lens on an extraordinary teacher and counselor who has no qualms about being called “The Angel of Death.”

Stephen Jenkinson, a Harvard educated theologian, is one of Canada’s leading palliative care educators. “Acceptance” of death, he says, “is too neutral. You have to love it. That’s active.”

Filmmaker and friend Wilson presents Jenkinson with an unclouded eye. Appearing onscreen together, their relationship is complex and occasionally combative. Captured with a cinematic eye, the film is a potent, lyrical and haunting exploration of how to meet one’s dying time.

produced by Annette Clarke for The National Film Board of Canada