When his elderly parents make a suicide pact, Doron struggles to accept their choice

For years, the Israeli filmmaker Doron Abrahami understood that his parents, Yosef and Zilli Abrahami, planned to take their own lives together rather than advancing far into old age. In the wake of this revelation, his ‘[camera] lens tightened further into them’ as he tried to make sense of the pact that they had made despite both still being happy and having, it seemed, several years of life left. And, as the resulting film The Love and Death of Yosef and Zilli (2021) explores, it’s a topic he’s still struggling to come to terms with more than 20 years later. Incorporating footage captured over decades – from the 16mm cameras of Abrahami’s youth to the high-resolution digital cameras of today – the film reflects his love for his parents, as well as his inability to change their minds, or to ever truly make peace with their decision. In the careful hands of Abrahami and the Israeli-Canadian director Dean Gold, the film steers clear of morbid intrigue, instead centring on complicated questions of family, ethics, ageing and death.