George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman: End Game

Description

Among the most dynamic documentary filmmakers of the past 30 years and stalwart champions of filmmaking in the Bay Area, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have continually mined hope from tragedy, together telling stories of resilience during the early AIDS crisis (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, 1989), against the backdrop of Hollywood stereotyping (The Celluloid Closet, 1995), and despite Nazi persecution (Paragraph 175, 2000). LGBTQ history was, of course, pivotally changed by Rob Epstein himself when he wove the community’s anger, anguish and action into the iconic and Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). Epstein and Friedman also created notable narrative films that have bent genres (HOWL, 2010) and opened minds (Lovelace, 2013). Their commitment to the film community in the Bay Area is as deep and profound as their practice as filmmakers, making them ideal recipients of this award. SFFILM presents this award in conjunction with a screening of Epstein and Friedman’s latest documentary work, End Game.

End Game (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, USA 2017, 40 min.)
Well-lit rooms with clean linen and soft voices contrast with the topic at hand in this documentary about the passage from life to death. The brave subjects of this film—some dying, others grieving, and still others tasked with speaking uncomfortable truths—opened their painful processes to Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s cameras. In response, the team gives them and us a hospice film to remember as philosophy, science, empathy, and professional effort are brought to bear on the practice of passing away.

The filmmakers embed themselves with the Palliative Care team at UCSF Medical Center and at San Francisco’s Zen Hospice Project, featuring visionary practitioners BJ Miller MD and Steve Pantilat MD. Once an outlier, Zen Hospice has come to embody a growing nationwide effort to reclaim the end of life as a human experience instead of primarily a medical one.

Film Details