The Fundy Film Society

Griefwalker

Stephen Jenkinson has been called the Angel of Death. Whether sitting at the bedside of a dying woman, or speaking to clinicians dedicated to delaying death, Jenkinson bears a message that most do not want to hear: that death is not something to be denied or avoided—but “befriended.”

A Harvard-trained theologian who has travelled far from Western religion, Jenkinson says there is a “hole inside most of us and it’s in the approximate shape of a soul.”

Griefwalker is filmmaker Tim Wilson’s extraordinary portrait of his friend Jenkinson and his work. The film is framed by Wilson’s wrestling with his denial of his own death as he nearly succumbs to a sudden illness, and his having to face the death of someone very close to him. Beautifully using the imagery of impermanent nature, Wilson documents Jenkinson’s work with the dying while challenging him to explain how “death is the cradle of your love of life.”

Griefwalker weaves an illuminating picture of a remarkable man, and leaves us with a deeper understanding of how our deaths should be held as “a prized possession.”