Director John Zaritsky’s comments about Leave Them Laughing

During my career, I have made several films which centered on death and dying. In some of my documentaries, the deaths were slow and painful natural ones. In other documentaries, the deaths were sudden and violent, coming at the hands of criminals or enemies in wars. Up to then, I had found nothing funny about death until earlier this year when I read a joke in a newspaper about dying that actually made me laugh. I was intrigued and tracked down the author of the joke. She is Carla Zilbersmith, a 46-year-old comedienne who is dying of ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Carla, it turned out, is not only the funniest person I’ve met but she is a talented singer, songwriter, and performance artist. Most importantly I discovered that Carla has written an insightful, inspiring and funny blog about her experience dealing with this cruel and debilitating fatal disease. So Carla and I decided that we would do a film that would be new and unique, a film that would be highly funny and musical about dying. Dare I say, a real life musical comedy? I won’t tell you which joke brought me to Carla. You’ll have to see Leave Them Laughing to find out. Enjoy!