CANTON – The Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton will offer a screening of the award-winning documentary film “Last Flight Home” on Wednesday, March 20, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Movie reviewers have called the film “a moving, boundlessly humane documentary” about the final days of Eli Timoner’s life once he chose to die, at age 92, under California’s End of Life Option Act.

The film explores one family’s gathering to help their beloved patriarch exit the world with the same dignity with which he lived.

The story is an enlightening, often humorous, view of the universal experience of death, said a press release from the UU Church.

Following the screening there will be small group discussion circles to share perspectives on the film and, for those who wish, to learn more about choices in end-of-life care.

The film is offered in collaboration with Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization that works in communities, and with state legislatures, Congress, courts, and medical settings to help to educate and advocate for end-of-life options which will improve patient autonomy and individual choice at the end of life, the church said.

This spring the New York state legislature is considering a medical aid in dying bill which would allow a mentally competent, terminally ill patients with no more than six months to live to request medication that must be self-administered in order to hasten their death.

The purpose of showing this film is to allow participants to consider their own views on end-of-life care, said the church.

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton Faith in Action Group recently participated in advocacy efforts at the state capital to persuade legislators to pass the bill.

“Death will touch us all but hopefully not everyone has to suffer. In the future, on the day of our death, may everyone in New York State have the ability to let go with a sense of true dignity,” said the Reverend James Galasinski, minister of the Church.

The film will be screened in the Romer Room at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton located at 3 1/2 E. Main St.

All are welcome to attend.

There is parking at the back entrance of the church. For additional information about end-of-life care and planning and the Medical Aid in Dying Bill, visit Compassion and Choices at www.compassionandchoices.org.