In the Wake TV Producers Shayna and Julia explore how Sundance 2025 tackled one of society's most taboo subjects: assisted death. While Out for Delivery approached the topic through dark comedy—finding absurdist humor in delivery mishaps during a woman's final hours—other films at the festival examined end-of-life autonomy from dramatic and documentary perspectives, creating a broader conversation about death, dignity, and choice.

Comedy, Drama, and Documentary—All Confronting Death: Shayna and Julia discuss how multiple films at Sundance 2025 centered assisted death, each offering different lenses on the same urgent question: Who gets to decide when and how we die? From Out for Delivery's satirical take on modern systems failing us even in death, to more serious explorations of terminal illness, grief, and the legal and ethical battles surrounding end-of-life care, the festival became an unexpected space for reckoning with mortality in all its complexity.

Why This Matters: The fact that multiple Sundance films addressed assisted death signals a cultural shift—audiences are ready for honest conversations about autonomy, suffering, and what it means to die with dignity. For marginalized communities, including disabled people, elderly folks, and those without access to quality healthcare, these conversations carry additional weight: Who is offered compassionate end-of-life care, and who is abandoned by systems that never valued their lives to begin with?

Watch the full conversation as Shayna and Julia unpack the different approaches to this difficult subject and why cinema is uniquely positioned to help us confront our fears about death.

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