JULIAN SCHNABEL - HOSPITALS ASK TO SCREEN SCHNABEL'S STROKE STORY

Artist/director JULIAN SCHNABEL's harrowing new movie about a real-life stroke victim facing death with a new lease on life is to be used in French hospitals to encourage those fearing death. Schnabel's acclaimed film about late Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell + The Butterfly, was shot in the French hospital where the writer received treatment after a stroke left him paralysed. And staff at the hospital were the first to approach the director and ask him if they could screen the movie to give other stroke victims hope. Schnabel says, "Doctors and nurses asked if this movie could be shown in hospitals, so it would make the patients feel like there was hope. "It made them feel like somebody understood that there was communication going on with Jean-Do and the therapists. And I never even thought about that when I made it. I think there's a lot of good feeling about it. "I think, ultimately, what it ended up being was a movie about love and compassion." Schnabel admits he was stunned to find the nurses who worked with Bauby were still active in the hospital - and he gave them all roles in the film. He adds, "The first person you actually see in the film is Virginia Delmotte, his real nurse. The guy who holds him in the swimming pool is Daniel Lapostolle his physiotherapist. "These people are selfless. I mean they have committed themselves to helping people that hardly do anything but the people have a soul and a heart and a mind and there's a value to that."