The Last Ecstatic Days premiered at the Santa Fe International Film Festival to sold-out audiences and rave reviews. The Boston Globe called it a “…courageous end-of-life chronicle, which overflows with compassion and shows us how to live mindfully while embracing curiosity about what lies beyond.”

The film has screened or will soon screen at Meow Wolf (Santa Fe), the Tibet House (NYC), the Congressional Cemetery (D.C.), the Secretary of Culture (Mexico City), the Sun Valley Wellness Institute (ID), the Psychedelic Assembly (NYC), the LEAF Festival (AVL), the Grief & Death Festival (Istanbul), the Oy Vey Festival (Amsterdam), and the Threshold Collective (PA).

Film Synopsis

Ethan Sisser, a young man with terminal brain cancer, sits alone in his hospital room. When he starts livestreaming his death journey on social media, thousands of people around the world join to celebrate his courage. Still, Ethan envisions more – to teach the world how to die without fear. To do that, he needs to film his death.

Honoring Ethan's wish, his doctor Aditi Sethi transports him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. What unfolds next is a story rarely glimpsed: how a community of strangers helps a young man die with grace.

A sensory immersion into leaving the body, The Last Ecstatic Days reveals a man who will not let us forget him – even after he takes his final breath.

Film Team

Director: Scott Kirschenbaum

Producer: Prerana Thakurdesai

Impact Producer: Lisa Deluc

Executive Producer: Dr. Jessica Zitter

Executive Producer: Gail Harris

Executive Producer: David Seidler

Impact

Most Americans are afraid of death. We have become so detached from the process that many fear even talking about it. What was once a contemplative and spiritual experience is now often an expensive and isolating medical event.

Hospitals are important places for healing, but are they ideal places to die? In our death-denying culture, people often approach conversations about mortality only in times of acute need, often too late for creating an experience that reflects and honors their wishes. Even more critically, many have no access to resources that would help them prepare for and move through this stage of life.

By demonstrating how dying can be an experience of peace, love and belonging, The Last Ecstatic Days documentary film illustrates the power of conscious choices around the end of life.

The Last Ecstatic Days was filmed to inspire audiences with a vision of what is possible when death is embraced with preparation and intention. It tells the story of one man’s determination to live every moment as fully as possible, and to die surrounded by love.

This film’s impact campaign will galvanize a mass movement towards living consciously and dying in community.

Building Communities

Distribute the film worldwide
Launch the Community Deathcare Network, a global hub for death literacy and support.
Research the interconnectedness between community deathcare and grief management
Partner with organizations like Omega Homes, death doulas, psychedelic practitioners, trauma-informed guides, therapists, mindfulness coaches, and yoga teachers to amplify the film’s messaging

Changing Minds

Facilitate virtual and in-person workshops around death preparation, grief recovery, trauma-informed care, specialized end-of-life support, LGBTQIA+ education, children’s grief, and pet loss support
Design and distribute the film discussion guide for individual and institutional use
Host community-supported grief concerts and events
Host Institute for Psychedelics & Death events

Changing Behaviors & Structures

Collaborate with educational and healthcare institutions to integrate conscious dying resources and community deathcare practices into medical, gerontological, palliative care and hospice training programs
Work with wellness and lifestyle brands to bring conscious deathcare more into the mainstream
Mark Deathcare Awareness Day on April 2nd, honoring Ethan Sisser’s legacy and promoting awareness of community end-of-life care

Help Launch the Community Deathcare Movement: Support Our 2024 Outreach & Engagement Tour!

By The Last Ecstatic Days

Help Launch the Community Deathcare Movement: Support Our 2024 Outreach & Engagement Tour!