AustraliaIn an outback shed in the Northern Territory, Dr Philip Nitschke builds his prototype death machine, the Co-Gen. The euthanasia campaigner and former physicist is determined to devise a peaceful 'do-it-yourself' way to die. In Perth, feisty 79-year-old Mademoiselle Lisette Nigot plans her suicide. Perfectly healthy, the French-born academic does not want to endure 'The horrible decrepitation of old age'. This striking film from Janine Hosking (My Khmer Heart, MIFF 2001) follows the journeys of these two remarkable people in their personal quests for fulfilment.

Travelling throughout Australia and the USA to market the Co-Gen, encountering much resistance from right-to-life protestors and the media, Nitschke is single-minded in his determination to assist in 'peaceful deaths'. Equally determined in her choice to die, Nigot recounts episodes from her glamorous life'from mixing with Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys during her time working at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel to her various lovers and libertine lifestyle. Thought provoking and certain to generate a hotbed of discussion, Mademoiselle and the Doctor is a powerful new Australian documentary.

Janine Hosking is a guest of the Festival.

D/P/WS Janine Hosking TD Video/Col/2004/90mins

Janine Hosking's films include: My Mummy's Dying (1989), A Bride's Story (1999), The Winner is Sydney (2000).