After Life

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Part of Great Beyonds: The Afterlife on Film film talk series!

Join Jeffrey Bender as he shuffles off this mortal coil and into the realm of the fantastic, the celestial and the downright absurd, in this four-film series exploring cinematic conceptions of the afterlife from a variety of styles, genres and perspectives across film history. It’s everything you wanted to know about the hereafter, but were afraid to ask… all on our big-screen!

If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. After Life ’s high-concept premise is grounded in Kore-eda’s documentary-like approach to the material, which he shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience – its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets – and a quietly profound meditation on memory, our interconnectedness, and the amberlike power of cinema to freeze time.

Presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

Jeffrey Bender

Jeffrey Bender has hosted a number of in-person and online Film Talks with the Westdale, most recently ‘Ride or Die Cinema’. He joins us this fall to host ‘Great Beyonds: The Afterlife on Film’, featuring four essential explorations into the afterlife as interpreted throughout film history, as well as serving as one of the guest speakers for Noirvember, featuring a survey of classic and contemporary film noir.