ZEIT DES ABSCHIEDS

Mehdi Sahebi's latest documentary opens with Giuseppe Tommasi's sardonic ques-tion: «So, I'm ready to die. Shall we continue?» Giusi, terminally ill, knows that the cancer pervading his body means he has little time left. The film made by his friend Mehdi Sahebi is thus both a farewell letter and an opportunity to make a dignified exit. The camera films Guisi in close-up, his ruffled black hair, his sparkling eyes, his body ever more exhausted by the tubes and valves which feed him medicine, sedatives and sometimes methadone. Despite the upsetting aspects of Giusi's future-less present, the lighter sequences in the documentary have a cathartic function. Guisi does not want to die as a junkie, but as a father, or at least as a citizen. He will die on camera, as a human being.