In February, a documentary film called Sister Úna Lived a Good Death premiered on PBS Independent Lens. Yes, you read that right – the film follows a nun with stage IV cancer as she lives life on her own terms in her final months. She plans her own funeral, travels to see the people she loves, and maintains a sense of humor about her impending death, spitting a wisecrack a minute in this hour-long documentary.
Community Reporter Tanay Gokhale caught up with Indian-American filmmaker and storyteller Par Parekh, who directed the film. Speaking from his home in Red Hook, Brooklyn, he spoke about always being weird, figuring out his purpose in life, his recent acceptance of the word artist, and of course, Sister Úna.
Edited excerpts below:
Q. Before we get to Sister Úna Lived a Good Death, could you talk a little about your life before the film?
Growing up as an Indian-American in the 1980s, it was a very different time in America. I was born in Texas, moved to California, moved to Maryland, moved all over the country but there were very few desis. And you know the drill, we’re on a track: my cousin became a lawyer; another is a cardiologist who lives in the suburbs of Long Island; my brother’s in construction; and then I’m a crazy artist!
I was always a weird kid, and we – my brother and I – loved movies, so we just watched a lot of movies. The culture that I grew up in, was a Gujarati-American culture with all the pluses and minuses that come with that. There’s no drinking, you don’t talk about girls, you don’t talk about art as a hobby. But I have to credit my parents for letting me explore when I was growing up. So they sent me to an Arts and Communications magnet school in the seventh grade but again, I had nobody to talk to. Most importantly, there was no model that I ever saw of someone who is Indian American that did that [the arts].
I went to college to study film philosophy and biology, and it was there that I started falling in love with weird movies, and my brain just exploded with what is possible in the world.
I wasn’t cut out for the corporate world, so I have been very lucky that I’ve been able to freelance in the creative world, throughout my career. With this movie and my next movie that I’m finishing, I feel like I understand myself as a storyteller, and a filmmaker and as an artist a little better.
But I only started calling myself the A-word – artist – four years ago, after my 40th birthday. I used to say I am a film-maker and storyteller and people said, “You know there’s a word for that, right? It’s ‘artist’.” And the reason it took so long was that I had no model for that. People say that representation on TV and movies is important, and it is, but I think seeing it in real life is important.
Now we live in a wonderful generation, even for Indian Americans in America because there are a lot more desi artists, weirdos, avant garde folk, people who are not following the traditional path of medicine, law or finance.
Q. And how did Sister Úna happen?
I was making a short film called Happy and Kelsey – who is a friend of a friend of a friend – kept saying “I have to go meet my dying nun friend, we have to plan her funeral.” Now, that’s an absurd sentence, I need to explore what that sentence means. So I offered to make a short film about Sister Úna, just for friends and family. I met her and we instantly clicked. She’s irreverent, she’s mischievous, she’s witty, she’s smart, she’s approachable, what’s not to love, right? And then as we became better and better friends and started talking, I realized this is a deeper movie.
Like all great things in life, you have to be open to the charms of the world. People are wonderful if you sit down and give them a chance to tell their stories. I’m really lucky to have had Sister Úna as a friend and as the subject of this documentary because she’s a brilliant storyteller herself.
This idea of living a good death is something that we just don’t talk about. We don’t even talk about death in American culture, and she made it accessible and approachable for me. I felt how she transformed me and other people in a room and so I said, let me use those tools and what I know as a storyteller to share that with an audience. And it kind of expanded into a feature film from then on.
Q. In the film, she is baring her soul to the camera: she is cracking jokes, talking very solemnly about her impending death, and even criticizing some elements of the Church that she’s a part of. In journalism terms, how did you win over her trust and get that sort of access?
So, I am primarily a film-maker and story-teller, and not a journalist. “Getting access” is the common phrase we use in both journalism and film-making, but I just never liked the phrase. There’s an implication that you did something to secure access to a person, which makes total sense if the person is Joe Biden or someone high-profile. But with Úna, she’s my friend! I just became friends with her and developed a sense of mutual trust, and we loved each other. And I think that is the distinction that allowed me to capture her baring her soul, her raw honesty on camera.
At first she was like, “Oh they’re making a documentary about me, and I’m the main subject,” and she’s such a performer, as you can see in the film. And maybe two months in, she got more raw, and more honest, and we were suddenly choking up more. I think that’s when we had won her trust.
Q. And I think that trust also makes the film feel more intimate, more emotional in some ways.
While filming, most times, it was just me with my small camera, my producer running sound, and Úna sitting in a room and trying to have a real conversation. I came up as an editor, so I see the world as in and out points into a shot, and so even while filming, I am thinking about what shots to get, and where to cut the shot. In this case, I had to let go and be like, we’re going to keep rolling and get what we can get because this is magic.
I think the form of the film also helps. I for one – and I think audiences in general – am exhausted by modern TV documentary media. Everything is slick, and costs a million dollars to make, and the sound is perfect, especially the true crime stuff. They’re always talking about whether it’s 4K or 8K, I say “who cares?”
In that sense, it was very brave of ITVS and Independent Lens (funder and distributor of the film, respectively) to support this film because it doesn’t look like your typical 2024 documentary. There’s a rawness to it that calls back to an older era of documentary, when it did feel a little more intimate, more rough hewn, and handmade.
Q. The film also serves up a poignant and revealing approach to dealing with life and death. What do you want people to take away from this film?
Something we don’t think about when we talk about death in our society is what does the person who’s actually dying want, what they’re feeling, I think that’s one of the great things that this movie does. It’s like a little bit of exposure therapy to the subject of death.
For a long time, I would go back to India every two years and in India, and I’d see there’s just an awareness about death because it’s all around you, culturally speaking. Of course, you see a lot of life too through the many animal species you find on the streets, but you also end up seeing a lot of death growing up.
In my culture, even when there is a death in the family, the body is supposed to be cremated within 24 hours, and there are elaborate rituals involving cow dung, and there’s an openness about it that is missing in American culture. Maybe it’s because there’s a cultural touchstone of reincarnation in India, but we just don’t see it in America.
We’re taught that to fight death in America, but at what part does acceptance come into play? At some point, you realize you can fight it for as long as you want, but it’s reality, and the film shows that you can have a say in how you choose to live towards the end of your life.
Another part is taking the burden of your death away from your family, just by talking about it. Do you want a funeral? What music do you want to play at your funeral? Who do you want there? And it’s okay to talk about these things. I think this movie allows you to feel that without being taught. You just see it play out, and I think that makes it a little bit safer to digest.
Q. After this film, what’s next for you?
I’m currently working on another documentary called Rooted, which is about Jermaine Jenkins, a Black farmer and food activist in North Charleston, South Carolina. The film documents her quest to own the land that she farms for her food desert community. It also touches on the big issues of race, land ownership, and health in our country. We are almost done with that edit, so we want to get it out in the world soon.
After that, I’m going to take a little breather, and then I want to do a 100% independent action-adventure kids movie set in my neighborhood of Red Hook! A little Goonies, a little Miyazaki, I just want it to feel alive!
You can watch Sister Úna Lived a Good Death here!