Randy Bacon recalls that around two years ago, he awoke one morning to a message from a woman he knew named Tara Balinski.
“She said, 'Randy, I had this dream that you need to do a film on this topic.' Wow. End of life. And she said, 'would you ever consider doing a film focused on the journey and potentially what may be the last chapter of people and how they're being taken care of?'And that's how it all started,” Bacon said.
Balinski happened to be an executive for Phoenix Hospice, which led Bacon to be able to create a partnership with the Hospice Foundation for Outreach. “And from there, just the pieces kept falling in place,” he added.
The film features six different stories about individuals across southwest Missouri who are currently on palliative or hospice care.
“The goal of what I want to do is present the unique, beautiful qualities of people no matter what your walk of life, but also share that they have a story that we all need to hear," said Bacon.
“I don't think there's another topic in the world where 8 billion people should have interest in," he said. “There's nobody that is exempt from the fact that we age, and eventually there's mortality.”
The process of collecting footage for the film looked a little bit different than some other productions.
“We did not have like all these preset questions that we wanted them to answer certain ways. It was more organic,” said Bacon. “And what I'm capturing is a raw, vulnerable thing. This one is, like, probably the most vulnerable and raw. It's like, yeah, I'm at this stage and I could very easily say, no, I just I don't have time for this.”
Because of the vulnerable nature of the content, the crew was small in number in order to retain subject comfort — between three to six crew members per shoot.
In addition to interviewing the individuals in palliative and hospice care, Bacon also chose to interview experts within the field, which he said revealed many issues to him.
“Insurance won't approve. And then even like these great organizations such as hospitals, hospitals are designed for profit, “ said Bacon. “Palliative focused doctors represent maybe 300 that are actually in a program. And then you think, wait a minute. Doctors as a whole, of course, are probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands each year that are going through some type of medical program.” He addsed, "and so that stuff came out, and I was like, that kind of infuriated me.”
Despite this discovery, and the overall themes of death and grief presented throughout the film, Bacon said he doesn’t want people to walk away from the film feeling depressed.
Bacon said the name for his film comes from a scrapped name for a Clem Snide album about life and death. The frontman of the group, singer-songwriter Eef Barzelay, agreed to let Bacon use the band’s music in his film and gave him the suggestion for the title.
“There's kind of like a letting go of it, but it's a letting go, not of weakness but of strength. There's even a hope in it. And so it just it conjures up this beauty versus despair," Bacon said
To watch the trailer for "The Soft Surrender," you can visit Bacon’s website, his Instagram or his Facebook page.
The red-carpet event for the documentary on Nobember 1 will feature a screening of the film, an exhibition of portraits, live music, a panel discussion and more. Pre-party will begin at 5 p.m., the discussion at 6:30 p.m. and post-party at 9 p.m.
For more information on the event or to purchase tickets, visit gilloiztheatre.com.
