Jon Imber's Left Hand (2014)

• 81%
• 2014
• Documentary
• Richard Kane

A document of this artist's courageous and sometimes darkly humorous response to a death sentence, a diagnosis of ALS. The film traces his life, his career, and his adaptations, switching from painting from his right hand to his left, and then to both hands held at his waist as the degenerative condition progresses. Adversity only makes him more determined to paint, and paint he does: more than 100 portraits in a four month span. We first encounter Imber in his studio for the first time painting with his left hand while he and his partner, painter Jill Hoy, analyze Jon's self-portrait and talk about the anxiety to come. The painting becomes an unsettling metaphor of his psychological journey living into his dying through his art.