Ruth Cave died last Sunday. I filmed Ruth as part of the TUESDAYS film, at the Maggie’s Centre. I keep thinking about her. I am making a DVD for the family of all the footage Ruth and I shot together – at home with the girls in the garden, cooking in the kitchen, walking on the huge beach at Monifieth. Ruth grins at me from the computer, arguing, telling stories, questioning me, telling me what to do with the film. Vibrant, alive.

Emma: Amy, you seem to have a fascination with death. In your press kit for THE EDGE OF DREAMING you speak about how this fascination started with the death of your mother and then continued when you had to face the possibility of your own death as portrayed in 'Dreaming'. In the process of making these films you have researched death extensively and are now developing a new documentary to be set in a hospice.

What motivates your fascination with death? Are there specific answers that you are looking for, and are these answers about dying or about living?

Amy: Bertold Brecht said we need, as individuals, to learn about dying. Montaigne wrote his essays (and coined the term, essay) as writings grappling with his own death. Our consciousness is enormous, and expands out of time. But is housed in this frail, time-limited body. How we can we not wrestle with these paradoxes?

Did you learn anything new about living and dying, or living with the prospect of dying, through your engagement with the Maggie's Centre and the film TUESDAYS?

Amy: Life becomes more precious to me. I have begun to believe that our greatest attribute as human beings is our capacity for appreciation. The filming is evolving to act as a mirror to people at a very tender point in their lives. They connect powerfully to each other, to their families, to the world around them. I, and my camera,  am caught up and held in their connections.

I’m at SOURCES 2 screenwriting workshop near Stuttgart. Eight days immersion with a group of Finns, Russians, Germans, Spanish, Austrians, Iranians, Irish, Swedish, a Norwegian… Coming from the Scottish Documentary Institute and supported by Creative Scotland, Sonja Henrici and I are the only filmmakers from Britain.

I am here because I feel quite overwhelmed by my experiences at Strathcarron Hospice, and want to make the very best film I can. As filmmaker in residence, I have already filmed with patients, and discovered the amazing singing talents. With great pride I showed my sample five minutes. "Ah yes," said Arash Riahi, the outrageously successful tutor. "You love your characters and you want to show them to the audience straight away. It is sweet. Or do you want to make a film?"

In the UK and Ireland, you can now watch Amy's film THE EDGE OF DREAMING online or download it to your computer.

In the Distrify player below, choose between the streaming rental for £2.99 and the download-to-own for £4.99.

"The one thing we have in common is that we are going to die. We don’t know when we’re going to die, but we are going to die." – Karen O'Shaughnessy

The thought of our own mortality is deeply uncomfortable. But for members of the Tuesday meetings at the Maggie Centre in Dundee, it is a pressing eventuality.

Amy Hardie's documentary TUESDAYS follows the group’s five attendees as they come to terms with their diagnosis of incurable cancer and the prospect of their own imminent deaths, something that both terrifies and intrigues them.

"For me, [joining the group] was to see what it was like to die from cancer," admits Ruth Cave, one of the younger members of the group, diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2004.

Death is the uniting factor – from different backgrounds and beliefs the women are drawn together by their own impending mortality. The group reflects this, having shrunk from eight to five within just a year as its previous members passed away, and protagonists speak frequently and candidly about preparing themselves and their families for death as they deal with the difficult reality of leaving children and their lives behind forever.

Here are some pictures taken by Emma Bestall at last week's premiere of TUESDAYS, Amy's new film about a group of women with advanced cancer who meet at the Maggie's Centre in Dundee. Article to follow. 

Ruth Cave and Karen O'Shanghnessy.

As you may know from watching THE EDGE OF DREAMING, Amy has been involved in a number of science documentaries.

Given she is probably too modest to mention this, I'll break the news here: STEM CELL REVOLUTIONS, a film made by Amy in close collaboration with scientist Clare Blackburn, just won the Vedere La Scienza Fesival in Milan, Italy. 

You can read the jury's statement on the film's website. This documentary will soon be released online and on DVD. You can sign up to get notified.

Congratulations to Amy and Clare, and also to Cameron who made the beautiful animations!

So reality is hitting in hard this week. Tosh O'Donnell is the amazing singer who keeps me entertained in the hospice with stories of growing up in Glasgow:

"See, we knew we were gaeing up in the world when we moved into a new place – it had an outside loo that LOCKED!"  

And then made me weak at the knees with his amazing singing voice.  His version of Strangers in the Night was my favourite, ever. But this week I was told he had died, suddenly and at home.

I got up at 6.30 a.m. this morning to get to Strathcarron Hospice to show four of the very experienced nursing staff the film TUESDAYS we have made with the Maggie's Centre in Dundee. On the road by 7.20 a.m.… Brain into gear at one minute to 9. It was the first showing of the final version of the film. There was total silence from the four nurses as the women on the screen took us through their lives.

“Well that’s not what you read in the text-books,” was the first response. “You know what these women have done?” – I steeled myself.

“They’ve put it into words – the confusion, the thoughts, all the different emotions that people want to and can’t say. It’s not sad. Not sad at all. It's what we see on the ward...it's the black humour...the friendship....it's beautiful and true and doctors and nurses need to see this film. ”

I believe her. Not only because she is a consummate professional, but also because I have watched this gorgeous woman sing and dance her patients into well-being at Strathcarron Hospice. And I keep filming it.

The film about the Maggie's Centre is with the sound designer Marcelo de Oliveiri right now, and will have its premiere in Dundee on Wednesday 4th April, when the amazing women in the film will be there to talk to the audience. Tickets are free but limited: RSVP here.

Amy will be screening THE EDGE OF DREAMING on Friday 16th and running a workshop on Saturday 17th. Book your ferry to the Outer Hebrides now. :-)