A month after receiving a fatal diagnosis in January 2015, Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of filmed interviews in his apartment in New York City. For eighty hours, surrounded by family, friends, and notebooks from six decades of thinking and writing about the brain, he talked about his life and work, his abiding sense of wonder at the natural world, and the place of human beings within it. Drawing on these deeply personal reflections, as well as nearly two dozen interviews with close friends, family members, colleagues and patients, and archival material from every point in his life, this film is the story of a beloved doctor and writer who redefined our understanding of the brain and mind.
Director’s Statement and interview
“From the start, this project has been one of the most moving and revelatory I’ve ever had the privilege of being involved with. We were called in to film Oliver Sacks only two weeks after he received the fatal diagnosis that would end his life seven months later, on August 30th 2015. From the moment my colleagues and I walked into his apartment on Horatio Street in New York in February 2015 – to begin what became eighty hours of filming with a remarkable 81-year-old man facing the end of life with courage and wonder and honesty – it was clear that virtually every issue of importance about what it means to live a life and to be a human being, was concentrated in his unusual life story: survival, beauty, art, science, storytelling, love, individuality, difference, dignity, autonomy, agency, wonder, language, meaning, consciousness, community, friendship, yearning, loss, connection with something larger.” Read More