French Film- Peaceful

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What does it mean to die “peacefully”? Is it possible to find grace and joy in something so solemn that we generally turn away from? That death has the power to grant forgiveness and empathy is the core tenet of Emmannuelle Bercot’s drama Peaceful, which explores a year in the life of a young man, Benjamin, facing a terminal diagnosis.
Luckily for Benjamin, he has a truly remarkable doctor, a model of compassion, in Dr. Eddé (Gabriel Sara), a real-life oncologist hired by Bercot as a consultant before deciding to cast him in the role of the doctor in his first-ever acting job. Dr. Eddé is calm, wise, and funny; he listens to Benjamin and his mother without giving in to their tendency toward denial and resistance. Peaceful occasionally takes us out of the patients’ world and highlights the emotional strain put on the nurses and doctors, showing how terminal illness affects everyone.

Screening followed by a Q&A with Dr. Gabriel Sara, the Mount Sinai oncologist who acts as Dr. Eddé in the film, and Dr. Lydia Dugdale, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons and author of The Lost Art of Dying.