Compassion & Choices and the Team Behind Award-Winning Documentary LAST FLIGHT HOME Present National Screening Tour in Support of Legislative Efforts to Improve End-of-Life Care Options

Film Described by The New York Times as “Boundlessly Humane, Amazingly Intimate” Is Important Tool to Educate Lawmakers on Issue of Medical Aid In Dying

May 10, 2023 Last Flight Home Ondi Timoner

LAST FLIGHT HOME director Ondi Timoner

LAST FLIGHT HOME director Ondi Timoner

Compassion & Choices Thursday announced it would collaborate with Interloper Films, the team behind MTV Documentary Films’ multi-award-winning, Oscar-Shortlisted documentary LAST FLIGHT HOME (https://www.interloperfilms.com/lastflighthome) to increase the visibility of campaigns to pass medical-aid-in-dying laws across the country. The film, which premiered at the Sundance and Telluride Film Festivals, chronicles the remarkable life of Eli Timoner and his decision to end his life with grace and dignity, surrounded by his family.

HERE is the 2-minute trailer of the documentary.

“This film offers an important and intimate look at one family’s journey through the process of medical aid in dying,” said Charmaine Manansala, chief advocacy officer of Compassion & Choices.  “This is an issue being debated in statehouses across the country as well as Capitol Hill.  It is our hope that, by inviting lawmakers to watch this story, they will find the compassion to allow for these important and deeply personal options to be decided by patients, in consultation with their doctors and loved ones.”

The screening tour begins in the following cities:

“I never expected to turn the camera onto my own family until my father decided to end his life in late January 2021,” said LAST FLIGHT HOME director Ondi Timoner.  “When he chose to utilize California’s End of Life Option Act, I realized that I wanted to chronicle his choice and the goodbyes it allowed him. I set out to privately document my father before he was gone forever, and our family’s journey. But what happened over those weeks was so transformative for all of us: The agency my father was able to have over his own body meant the world to him, and it allowed our family the unexpected gift of closure, and even to celebrate his extraordinary life. It was the most profound journey any of us have ever taken, and I hope it can be used by others to inform theirs.” 

“Last Flight Home documents a family’s experience of coming together to respect their father’s wishes to utilize medical aid in dying,“ said U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO7). “Difficult medical decisions like these should be made between patients, their doctors, and their families. I helped pass similar legislation in Colorado and will be working to bring national attention to this important issue, first by hosting a screening with my colleagues in Washington D.C.”

ABOUT LAST FLIGHT HOME

Behind a white picket fence, on an unremarkable suburban street, Eli Timoner is about to die. Just as he lived, he will do so surrounded by his loved ones, on his own terms. Lucky enough to live in one of the few states that allows Medical-Aid-in-Dying, the Timoner family embarks on a mission to help their beloved patriarch exit the world with the same grace and dignity with which he lived. As the family opens up to provide an enlightening, often humorous, view of a universal experience, this intensely-intimate film also offers a lasting legacy of one man’s extraordinary life and his commitment to both living – and dying – with agency and grace.