Dance Me to the End of Time comes from Melanie Chait, a woman telling stories of women. The woman at the forefront of this documentary is her late partner, intersectional activist Nancy Diuguid. She also peels back and gives some spotlight to another intersectional activist from the 1960s, a half generation prior, Rachel L. Carson. Carson’s work mostly focuses on environmental activism, warning the public about children’s exposure to pesticides like DDT. Carson’s work is strong enough that even other politicians were warning Kennedy about DDT’s harmful effects. But mostly, this is an intimate portrait of Diuguid and her struggles before succumbing to her cancer.

Dance… is a documentary decades in the making, coming out after Diuguid’s passing which happened back in 2003. Chait is fortunate enough to have access to archive photos and footage of Diuguid as late as 2001. Some of these photos are from her collection, like their travels to places like occupied Tibet. Outside of being a bucket list destination, one assumes that her allyship comes from Chait’s complex heritage. Chait is a white South African, a heritage that Diuguid embraces knowing the complications within that country. Chait and Diuguid contribute to a post-Apartheid South Africa, doing work within communities healing from their trauma.

Most cinephiles often see the artform’s history through a male lens, down to its subject choices, so as women living in man’s world, men are an inevitability in Dance Me to the End of Time. Thankfully, archive footage of Kennedy is thankfully minimal here, only down to that archival one scene of him. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky here but there’s one shortcoming in its depiction of Carson. This again is one of the many documentaries that treat someone’s sexuality as spoiler material. At least, though, there’s that scene where a narrator reads out her letters to her loving partner.

Nonetheless, I actually like what a film Dance Me to the End of Time focuses on because sure, it gives the spotlight to macro issues but for the most part it chooses intimacy. Chait brings the camera back to Diuguid, giving a brutal yet dignified portrait of fighting cancer’s effects. In the footage she shows, she has Diuguid speaking about her wants and needs during final stages. Again, dignity is most paramount here, as she shows Diuiguid thinking about herself and others equally. Chait asks Diuguid if she’s content, and that’s all one can ask for for people like her.

Dance Me to the End of Time is available to stream on OVID.