QDoc Film Festival: Here I Am

Rayya Elias lived big. A musician, writer, hairstylist and fixture of New York’s downtown scene, she survived addiction, homelessness and incarceration before rebuilding her life on her own terms. Then, at 56, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. By her side was her best friend-turned-partner, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, who put everything else aside to care for the woman she loved. With remarkable intimacy, award-winning filmmaker Marc J. Francis follows Rayya through her final year as making music becomes more essential than ever, and she finds her way back to family, Detroit and the Arabic roots she once pushed away. Raw and deeply moving, "Here I Am" is a love story, a homecoming and a portrait of an unforgettable woman determined to live fully to the end.
Q&A with Director Marc J. Francis to follow the screening.
“I am so grateful for the existence of this powerful and unflinching chronicle. She wanted her death to be a work of art, and so it is.” — Elizabeth Gilbert