CapU alumni partner pushes boundaries in VIFF cryonics documentary, Relax Open Your Eyes
Maximilliano Chi Leung Alserda (he/him) // Contributor
Santiago Ospina (he/him) // Contributing Visuals
The 45th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) wouldn’t be possible without the 800 staff and volunteers working behind the scenes across 11 days in October. Some of whom are Capilano University film students and alumni screening their work. A huge spotlight this year is on feature debuts, especially championing B.C. filmmakers.
Last year we saw the likes of Motion Picture Arts (MOPA) alumnus Sophy Romvari, with scenes of Blue Heron being shot in the Bosa Centre. Now she’s a curator for the current “Leading Lights” segment, showcasing her influences in “subtle women cinema,” as she calls it. This wave of local talent continues the trend with Relax, Open Your Eyes debuting at VIFF.
The 2026 lineup showed a bigger shift towards documentaries compared to previous years, as noted by the producer Michael Tanko Grand, when I interviewed him and David Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich is the director of Relax, Open Your Eyes, marking his first foray into documentary. Grand commented on why he and Telefilm Canada had faith in this project and how VIFF platforms local filmmakers: “There’s Joella Cabalu’s first feature, First Comes Love: Nakabingwit [. . .] as well as people coming back like Justin Ducharme with Seventeen.”
In Relax, Open Your Eyes, cryonics has been a hard issue to tackle since it invites skepticism from the scientific community and is banned in B.C. as a service due to restrictions under Section 14 of the Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services Act. It’s forbidden to cryopreserve a body after legal death. Ehrenreich chose an “anti-nihilist and pro-environmental approach” instead of a scientific exposé that tackles the whole of cryonics. He asks us to believe in human ingenuity while he remains completely transparent with the audience. His aim is not to concoct a sci-fi journey, but one of radical openness to counter death through the lens of love and their fight for the future.
Carrie Radomski and her family are at the heart of the documentary. For over a decade, she has been a member at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a non-profit based in Arizona focused on researching cryonics. Its members can choose between neuropreservation, which puts the brain in stasis under liquid nitrogen, or undergoing the full body to stop from entirely decaying. By replacing body fluids to preserve their cells, they hope for a future where technology is advanced enough to bring them back.
During their annual meetup, Carrie says there’s over a 50 per cent chance of being revived someday if she’s preserved with no delay. Then, we see another member assert that they would rather have a whole new body, rather than preserving their own.
Later in Salem, we encounter Alicia Keberle, a female specialist and key research collaborator working with Oregon Cryonics. She chooses not to sign up for her body being preserved, as she considers that life is beautiful. But what makes it more beautiful is dealing with the hard parts, having no desire to continue past what she’s supposed to. The cryonics community is in “no way monolithic in their ideas,” as Ehrenreich points out. Even cryonicists are “skeptics of their own pursuit.” He commends their bravery and leap of faith as it’s still an evolving and complex field.
Grief never takes shape; we make space for others, loving even as we wait in their absence, just as Sasha does in Blue Heron. Both films sit with the uncertainty of death. Yet in Relax, Open Your Eyes, Carrie follows in the footsteps of three generations of female dissidents by rebelling against B.C. law. She relocates to Alberta to save her family, skirting legal obstacles to realize her dream to build the first Canadian cryonics centre, a resistance both personal and political.
All her energy is dedicated to cryonics, ensuring bodies are delivered to a facility on time so loved ones might recover their memories if they are revived. She even carves her own container to stop time for her husband, Witek, who’s facing grave threats to his health, and is suffering from 10-20 seizures a day at a medical monitoring unit. This led him to believe that consciousness is rare and fragile in this universe.
Whether you want to hope that cryogenics are happening or not, Ehrenreich thinks “it’s all a matter of personal decision.” The film doesn’t give us a roadmap to loss or prolonging life as we tag along on Carrie’s journey across the States, Spain and Switzerland, training with international cryonicists who are passionate about helping humanity. Even in the process of making it, many of the people he’s become close with have since been cryopreserved. Yet, he’s just as lost, saying that it gave him a real sense of relief knowing that was what they wanted. Ultimately, this documentary is a minefield of questions for opening a two-way conversation with the audience. It’s an effort to listen and challenge our preconceived notions of cryonics in pop culture.