Donated to Science

Have you ever wondered what happens to a body once it is donated to medical school? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a body apart to see how it works? Now is your chance to find out.

Donated Science follows a group of people who donate their bodies to the University of Otago Medical School. Director Trotman interviewed them while they were still alive and the donors and students gave us permission to follow their amazing journey. The film picks up when the students meet the body for the first time, to when they make their first cut and when they say their final goodbyes.

What the students learn is far more than just anatomy. From the dead they learn life, they learn compassion and they learn humanity. After their two years of dissection is over, the students see the interviews with the people they have dissected. The effect is profound and gives the film an emotional climax you would be hard pressed to match in any feature film, a climax made even more powerful by the fact that it is real… for some there really is a life after death.