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INTENSIVE LIFE UNIT

by Adéla Komrzý

synopsis

Doctors Ondřej and Kateřina look after their patients to the best of their ability, but they can’t prevent their death. Nevertheless, the inevitability of the end isn’t the hardest thing they have to face as heads of palliative care at Prague’s General University Hospital. A pilot project has emerged at a time when countless options are available to prolong human life; death is a social taboo and everyone has to confront his own mortality. Aware that a classic profile of the hospital would fall short, Adéla Komrzý submits a profoundly humanistic meditation on the ethics of palliative care. Betraying her special brand of empathy, she documents intimate conversations between doctors and their patients which demonstrate that, while there’s no good or bad way to die, there’s always a means to improve patients’ quality of life.

international title: Intensive Life Unit
original title: Jednotka intenzivního zivota
country: Czech Republic
year: 2021
genre: documentary
directed by: Adéla Komrzý
film run: 73'
screenplay: Adéla Komrzý
cinematography by: Prokop Souček
film editing: Mariana Kozáková
music: Marek Mrkvička
producer: Pavla Janoušková Kubečková, Tomáš Hrubý
production: nutprodukce, Czech Television - Česká televize, FAMU, UPP
backing: Czech Film Center/Ceské filmové centrum + Czech Film Fund/Státního fondu kinematografie

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