Hemlock Society movie picks

The right to a peaceful, humane death has been the subject of several dozen excellent films that the Hemlock Society of San Diego has been showing for free (usually at the La Jolla Library) every other month in our Right to Die Film Festival. The beautiful Bollywood film Guzaarish (Request) is the story of a handsome, young quadriplegic who pleads unsuccessfully with the courts to have physician aid in dying — a topic now being debated in the California General Assembly.

• Guzaarish (India) 2010, Mind Blowing Films
• Available on Amazon and YouTube

Related to that is the issue of old age rational suicide wonderfully dramatized by Katherine Hepburn and Nick Nolte in the 1984 comedy Grace Quigley. Nolte is a hit man, discovered by Hepburn and made a hero by her older friends who want his services.

• Grace Quigley (USA) 1984, Cannon Films
• Available on DVD

— Faye Girsh, president and founder, Hemlock Society of San Diego