Time of Closure / Zeit des Abschieds

Giuseppe Tommasi’s life was somewhat ill-fated from the start. As a child of Italian migrants in Switzerland, he was given to adoptive parents who failed to provide a loving home. A handsome and intelligent character, he never managed to find his place in society, abandoned his career, left his wife and children and spiralled into drug addiction. At the age of 44, clearly emaciated from aids and cancer, he will spend the last months of his life at the Zurich Lighthouse hospice. Facing death he begins to reflect on his life, his family and starts to question himself and his actions.

By way of intimate cinematography, director Mehdi Sahebi details Giuseppe’s brutally honest and relentless way of dealing with his own past, of coming to terms with it and providing answers for his children. Refreshingly, Giuseppe Tommasi’s accounts are completely devoid of self-pity and manage to purvey a sense of wisdom, which is rendered all the more powerful by his clarity of mind and his startling sense of humour.

TIME OF CLOSURE is more than a portrait of a man on the brink of death, but a challenging contemporary document that is both moving and illuminating.