Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end

Even people who are comfortable discussing death – including the inevitable prospect of their own – might understand little about how it actually tends to unfold unless they’ve experienced it firsthand alongside a loved one. In this brief animation, author Kathryn Mannix, who worked as a palliative care physician for 20 years, offers viewers a sensitive, honest and practical guide to how death tends to progress under normal, or perhaps ideal, circumstances. Pairing her narration with gentle, flowing animations, the UK filmmaker Emily Downe’s short makes a powerful case that there’s deep value in discussing and understanding death well before it touches us.