Dune: Part Two premiered at Quebec palliative care home to fulfil man's dying wish
The work of Quebec film‐ maker Denis Villeneuve was shown in a room at a palliative care centre to fulfil the end-of-life wish of a long-time film fan in a special world premiere, well ahead of the official launch.
A man from SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean, Que., had an almost impossible final wish when he knew he was at the end of his life. The movie buff said he would like to see the film Dune: Part Two, which was set to be released on March 1, before he died.
He expressed this wish to Josée Gagnon, whose job is to accompany people at the end of life through her com‐ pany L'Avant.
Sébastien Pilote, a direc‐ tor from the Saguenay re‐ gion, put Gagnon in touch with Villeneuve, the renowned filmmaker, after she put a call-out on Face‐ book with the man's last wish.
"Denis Villeneuve and his wife Tanya, who is a pro‐ ducer, said, 'OK, we could get him to come to Los Angeles.' I said, 'You don't understand, he's at the end of his life, there's no way to move him. We don't even know if he's going to be here next week,'" said Gagnon in an interview on Radio-Canada's Place publique.
Realizing that the man would not be able to go to the premiere, Villeneuve de‐ cided to send the movie di‐ rectly to the municipality of Saguenay. Villeneuve's assis‐ tant flew down to Quebec with the filmmaker's laptop.
"They locked themselves in a room at the Maison de soins palliatifs [...] and this man managed to watch the film on his own," said Gag‐ non. Everyone had to sign waivers not to reveal any‐ thing about the movie.
The screening took place more than a month and a half before its worldwide re‐ lease.
Too weak, the film buff fell asleep before the end of the movie and died later.
According to Gagnon, some of the people who played a role in getting the movie to Saguenay felt the effort was ultimately a failure because he never got to see the film's sending.
I said, 'You don't under‐ stand, it's extraordinary what this man went through, The end of a film when you're going to die, it doesn't mean anything … it was all there for him," said Gagnon.
Gagnon had to keep this story to herself until the movie hit the big screen. She finally posted a long message on Facebook late Friday, thanking everyone who had made the adventure possi‐ ble, including her husband and the staff at the Maison de soins palliatifs du Sague‐ nay.
"It's been truly magnifi‐ cent. The others went through something great, they went off to do the inter‐ national red carpets, the media, but here there was something," she said.
"[Villeneuve and Lapointe] said, 'It's for him, it's for that man that we make films, it's for the guy who said before he died, I want to see that film,'" she said.