Cliff: a Portrait of an Artist

A documentary-portrait of one of Winnipeg's most successful visual artists - Cliff Eyland who, with only months to live, received a double-lung transplant five years ago and a new lease on life. He calls the year since his surgery an afterlife, even though he is precious about nothing. In fact his Zenfulness often borders on the lackadaisical. He spends every day in his studio, making art, and doling out his recently amassed wealth to less fortunate artists, because "Hey, you can't take it with you." A man who has been on every side of the art scene (writer, professor, curator, artist, model), Cliff sees the absurdity of it all very clearly. This documentary is an effort to understand how a man could slide, smiling into the Abyss, through one hundred biopsies, ten thousand pills, and somehow reconcile his Artist's ego with his complete coolness about mortality.