This poignant new documentary about six people in a hospice finding their true voices will be screened at Lansdown Hall, Stroud, on Saturday 9th January with film maker Dr Amy Hardie; 7pm for a 7:30pm start. Seven Songs For A Long Life was released UK-wide on 2 October 2015 in association with Hospice UK and is being screened in community venues from Inverness to Brighton. A percentage of the ticket sales from this event will go to Longfield, a local hospice.
Seven Songs documents the lives of six day-care patients in Strathcarron Hospice, following them between home and hospice as they navigate their way through the end of a future that faces all of us. From the moment Tosh refuses to fill in his assessment form and serenades us with a remarkably good Sinatra song, this documentary grabs life through song. The patients allow us into tender, vulnerable and funny moments of their lives. Singing unlocks the patients’ pasts, guides their dreams and their futures. Encouraged by one nurse who loves to sing, and a collaborative filming process, they wrestle with the new insecurity facing us all: recent advances in biomedicine mean we can now live for years rather than months after a terminal diagnosis. Sometimes. But not every time. How do we cope with this uncertainty? Strathcarron’s patients are quirky, wry frontrunners in a journey that we will all face.