STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

A film about a man who shared his death with the world will be followed by a panel discussion.

“The Last Ecstatic Days” will be shown at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 1, at the Sun Valley Opera House. It will be followed by a discussion with the film’s director Scott Kirshenbaum, Alli Collins, executive director of the Wood River Valley’s Hospice; Dr. Tom Archie, physician with Inner Health; the Rev. Jonah Kendall, rector at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and Kate Riley, end-of-life advocate.

“The Last Ecstatic Days” is a documentary that follows a 36-year-old young man with terminal brain cancer. He begins to livestream his death journey on TikTok and, as thousands of people around the world begin to celebrate his courage, he decides he wants to film his death in order to teach the world how to die without fear.

His doctor takes him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, N.C. And a community of strangers helps the young man die with grace as he shares his death with the world.

The film, which provides a sensory immersion into leaving the body, “overflows with compassion and shows us how to live mindfully while embracing curiosity about what lies beyond,” said a writer for the Boston Globe.

The film notes: We’re all going to die. What if we weren’t afraid?

“ ‘The Last Ecstatic Days is radical because it laughs at taboo,” said Kirshenbaum, who admits he wanted to stay home from kindergarten on his fifth birthday because the thought of five years passing—and with it the fear of his life ending with perhaps nothing after—paralyzed him. “It’s not simply a film about death; it invites you to experience the full expanse of the death journey in order to live more fully.

Tickets are $20, available at https://www.sunvalleywellness.org/event-details/the-last-ecstatic-days-screening-panel-community-discussion?utm_campaign=718e2e77-40b6-488c-a87c-902ac15bae9f&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=4c41754c-f475-4a8b-a106-b3b7f579c2d7.