I was fortunate enough to be at the Melbourne premier of this film last night as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. LOOK BOTH WAYS is a wonderful film which explores our fears of our own mortality and how we deal with the death of people close to us. It is a very touching film that manages to confront death and dying without ever becoming morbid. The use of animation during the film to portray the anxieties of the main characters adds touches of humour to what is essentially a serious and comtemplative film.

In her first feature film, Melbourne-based Writer/Director Sarah Watt has successfully tapped into that sense of death anxiety which surrounds us these days. Over the last 6 months, a number of people close to me have been diagnosed with cancer and ever since I’ve had this constant sense of “what if I’ve got it” brewing inside of me. It’s very easy to become paranoid and obsessive about it and this is what Watt explores in her wonderful film. The actors all do a great job portraying the conflicts, fears and doubts of their characters.

She crafts a story about seven people whose lives intersect while they are each, in their own way, trying to deal with life’s challenges, especially as they relate to death - their own or the death of someone close to them.

I really hope you get to see this film. This isn’t usually the kind of film I’d go out of my way to see (and it wasn’t out first choice last night either, it was the only thing we could get into), but it’s one of the best Australian films I’ve seen in recent years and I’m glad I saw it. Even though this is a film about death and dying, it’s also a film about hope and enjoying the eternal moment, because it’s all you’ve got.

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