Charlottesville filmmaker, living with ALS, makes death the focus of final doc

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Chris Farina, in 2016, began work on a new project with the working title “Death Becomes You,” with the idea of tackling what is very much a taboo subject: death. For obvious reasons, we don’t like talking about it – death – because, while it’s inevitable, it’s, you know, it’s death, the end. The film, as he envisioned it, at the outset, would have Farina, a 1982 UVA alum, speaking with funeral directors, hospice workers, grief counselors – people whose jobs bring them into daily contact with that which the rest of us don’t want to think about, much less base our lives around. The goal: to get us thinking, get us talking, and maybe edge us toward accepting death as a natural part of life. Then, as happens, life intervened. First, it was other projects – “Seats at the Table,” a documentary on a class taught by UVA lecturer Andrew Kaufman that brought together university students with residents of a maximum-security juvenile correctional center through the study of Russian literature; “Pep Banned,” a doc on the rise and fall of the irreverant University of Virginia Pep Band; “A Bridge to Life,” which tells the story of The Bridge Ministry, a Buckingham County-based ministry that works to save lives of men dealing with serious addiction issues. Then, the intervention was, life itself. Farina was diagnosed with ALS in 2022.   How you can help Rosalia Films is currently raising funds to support the film's release to create significant social impact. A generous donor is matching every dollar raised up to $35,000, meaning roughly $5,000 more in new donations would trigger the full match. The goal is to raise the funds quickly, so the film can be shared while Chris is here to see it happen. Donate (tax-deductible via The Film Collaborative): thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/deathbecomesus