Mortal Lessons: A New Look at Death

After a long one-and-a-half-year journey, UCD's David Liban has recently completed his documentary film Mortal Lessons-written, directed, produced, and edited by himself.

On February 5, his first feature-length documentary was polished and ready for screening. "I've been interested in making movies since I was a kid," explains Liban. "It's been a major part of most of my cogniscent life."

Liban has been an Assistant Professor of Film and Video Production in the UCD College of Arts and Media for five years, and currently teaches Production Post-Production II.

Even during his time as a professor, Liban hasn't missed a beat in his filmmaking career.

The title of the film sums up its message: a lesson in mortality. Liban's documentary takes a less grim look at death. "On the surface, the film is about death and dying, yet it really is about living life," Liban says.

His interest in this topic came about after one of his colleagues asked him to help them edit a similar project.

Says Liban: "From there, my interest kicked in. I started researching the topic, and it happened organically."

Mortal Lessons is a documentary following two women, completely separate from each other, who willfully accept their own mortality.

These women are battling lung cancer and have their own methods of dealing with death; the film examines their journeys.

According to Liban, "it's both a broad and an introspective look at death, through the perspective of those who face it daily."

During the pre-production process, Liban definitely had to do his research. Through the movie, he wants to psychologically involve viewers, so they can shortly experience what these women go through daily.

To achieve this, Liban interviewed funeral workers and people who were personally dealing with the loss of a loved one. "It sounds grim, but death is an inevitable part of life, and it's something our society is afraid to talk about," explains Liban.

Liban funded Mortal Lessons solely by his own means. He used all of his own equipment, shot the film in high-definition, and used four students to aid him in production.

When all was said and done, Liban was left with approximately forty hours of footage-which took him four hundred hours to fully edit.

"I shot the piece pretty much without breaks," Liban reminisces. "During the editing process sometimes I would take a week off, but I worked through it consistently all summer. It's nice to be out of the basement now."

In addition to making for a relatively successful film, Mortal Lessons shaped the Assistant Professor's personal values. "After meeting all these people and hearing their stories, it has completely altered my view of life and death, and dying," he says.

The film is about viewing death as more than loss, grief, and suffering. Mortal Lessons encourages people to do more than just go through the motions of their daily lives, and value their limited time.

Professor Liban is wasting no time in exhibiting his film. Before it was finalized, he received and signed an offer from the SanLight DVD Distribution Company. SanLight generally deals with educational health films.

In addition, Mortal Lessons has been submitted to twenty-five film festivals, and accepted into one so far-the Honolulu International Film Festival.

In Honolulu, Liban won the "Aloha Accolade Award" for excellence in filmmaking, adding a great accomplishment to his resume.

"It's the best film I've done; I'm very proud of it. I'm not the first to do a documentary of this style, but my film is most certainly different," he says of his award.

Another goal Liban has in mind for the film is possibly screening the documentary on television. If a station were to pick it up, he pictures Mortal Lessons on a PBS-type station.

This documentary is recommended for all audiences eighteen years or older. "The concept may drive people away, but the people who sit and watch it will be enlightened," Liban urges. "It is really a spiritual movie at heart."

At the end of the day, monetary success and cinematic glory aren't what satisfy Liban.

"Success for me is completing the project, and getting people interested. I do feel I have gotten some success. It's the first time a distribution has come to me first," he says.

On February 12, Mortal Lessons was screened at Anschutz after a geriatrics symposium. "A man came up to me and told me about how he was walking his daughter through breast cancer…and he told me how much my film helped him cope." Liban recalls.

"It was the greatest compliment I had ever gotten."

More information on Mortal Lessons can be found at www.mortallessons.net, along with other details of Liban's overall career.

Catch Professor David Liban's documentary film Mortal Lessons at the Starz Film Center Thursday, February 26. The screening is free at 7 p.m.