She made the documentary ten years ago Mothers don’t jump off flats about her mother Willemien who struggled for years with very serious psychological complaints. Her euthanasia request was rejected and a few days later she jumped from the eleventh floor of an apartment – with the knowledge of Elena, her sister and her partner.
More than twenty years after her mother’s act of desperation, Lindemans investigates A good death what the current practice is for the group of people who suffer mentally and have an acute wish to die. Are they heard or are they still often alone? Elena Lindemans studied Journalism in Zwolle and then in Finland and Belfast. She has been a documentary maker at BNNVARA and a presenter for almost 25 years Doctalks on NPO 2 Extra.
Was your proposal for the documentary series approved immediately?
“Both BNNVARA and NPO 2 immediately said yes. It is a logical continuation of my documentary Mothers don’t jump off flats. I came up with it when my other documentary series In TBS was on hold for a long time due to corona. The first day of shooting was at the end of 2021. It has become a special but also bizarre series. The crew and I often thought after a recording: ‘This could have been just as good for the Netflix series Black Mirror can be’. It shows how things may be in the future, how normal some things can become. We were particularly impressed by how feasible death already is for some people and doctors. We saw people brighten up completely once they knew they could die humanely.”
Careful
You can’t shoot a series like that in just a few days…
“Certainly not. We filmed more than fifty days in two years. I wanted to carefully visualize what happens in practice and we were regularly unable to spend too long with people. We follow Pythia (67) and Marte (26) who, after years of waiting, were given euthanasia by a psychiatrist from the Euthanasia Expertise Center (EE). Yvonne’s psychiatrist (58) decided to provide euthanasia for the first time. And Wil (78) found the euthanasia process ‘to be allowed to die’ so difficult that she took drug X.”
Is euthanasia practice in the Netherlands different than in other countries?
“In 2001, the Netherlands was the first country in the world with a Euthanasia law. More than twenty years later, only a handful of countries still allow this. In short, it is no longer punishable in our country, provided strict due care requirements are met. For example, a person must be mentally competent and there must be hopeless and unbearable suffering. The latter is very difficult to prove for people with psychological problems. Psychiatrists still appear to be reluctant to provide euthanasia to these people.”
“Many people think that if they write down their end-of-life wishes in a will, loved ones can ensure – if they can no longer ask for it themselves – that they receive euthanasia. But that’s not how it works: it is not transferable. A child cannot later say: ‘My old mother did not want it this way and now wants to die’.”
Painful situation
A storyline from the series is about this, right?
“Yes, more or less. For example, we follow Marij (87) and her son. She did not want to end up in a nursing home because of her dementia and had therefore been talking to her GP about euthanasia for years. The doctor was willing to do it, but Marij kept putting it off: ‘I only want euthanasia if I have to leave home. But not yet’. She eventually became incompetent, forcibly removed from her home and yet admitted to a nursing home. She was initially quite happy there, but things quickly went downhill, she lost weight and sank deeper into her dementia. That was a really painful situation that shows that things do not always go as the main characters and their family wish.”
How did the recording crew experience the project?
“I worked with camera and sound people who all have elderly parents. They found it difficult to discuss this: ‘When do you ask your father whether he wants euthanasia later or what should happen if he develops serious dementia?’ Filming for this series allowed them to talk about what they had seen and heard and before they knew it, the conversation had been had with the parents. I thought that was wonderful.”
Credits A good death
Client: BNNVARA
Producer: BNNVARA
Director: Elena Lindemans
Dramaturge: Katja Schoondergang
Executive producer: Sander van den Eeden
Production management: Joyce van der Zalm
Final editing: Hein-Jan Keijzer
Editorial staff: Maartje Bottelier
Camera: Jan Pieter Tuinstra, Lesly Kanters, Rogier den Boer, Jelle Dijkstra, Johan Kezer
Assembly: Floor Rodenburg NCE
Sound: Jillis Schriel, Benny Jansen, Bouwe Mulder
Voice-over: Elena Lindemans
Music: Tobias Borkert
Design: Studio Minsk (Tjako de Weerd)
Length: 50 minutes
Number of episodes: 4
Number of shooting days: 52
Location: from Groningen to Limburg, from South Holland to Friesland.
Played on: FX9 and Arri Amira
Broadcast: weekly from May 6 on BNNVARA at 10:10 PM on NPO 2
Source: BM
Photos: Elena Lindemans, Lin Woldendorp
Tags: good death series euthanasia BNNVARA
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