The Departure

Ittetsu Nemoto is a Buddhist priest. Before that he was in the punk music scene and, by his own account, lived without direction. What he is known for in Japan is his work: he talks with people who want to die. Those conversations sometimes go on through the night. Nemoto now has a wife and a small son. In the same period he learns there is something wrong with his heart. What the doctors say is plain: this pace will kill him. But the question of what happens to the people who call stays there. The documentary tells that dilemma through ordinary moments, without enlarging it. Lana Wilson’s film, eighty seven minutes long, a British and American production, was completed in 2017.