Mel Schwartz escaped the Great Depression on a bicycle adventure he'd remember for the rest of his life... until Mel lost his memory to Alzheimer's. Now over seventy-five years later, his grandchildren set out to recreate his life-changing journey and find those memories before they slip away. Cycle of Memory explores the importance of intergenerational connection, healing painful pasts, and leaving a meaningful time capsule for the future.
Day after day, an elderly woman recalls the Spanish Basque country of her youth — while forgetting she is consigned to a retirement home in Chile.
A light-hearted yet deeply moving portrait of the Asian- and Jewish-American women who play this centuries-old Chinese game, shedding light on the common and uncommon experiences of the players that simultaneously define and transcend cultural boundaries. Along the way, it proves again and again to be a bridge connecting seemingly unlike individuals, spanning generations, continents and cultures, and transcending classification as merely a game.
The adventure of five seniors who engage in an intense training of their mind. For the purpose of a scientific study, the impact of meditation on aging is evaluated.
"Work While You Have the Light" is a feature documentary by a multi-generational directing team that examines professional women who are over seventy years old and still working.
At a mobile home park in small-town Northern California, five best friend retirees navigate their golden years with grace, humor, and wisdom, and reflect on the importance of genuine human connection.
A year in the life of the Palm Springs Follies, featuring beautiful, ageless performers from around the world in a show that is always Standing Room Only. The film intercuts colorful interviews with the participants and footage of auditions, rehearsals, and the actual performances.
On the outside, it looks like any ordinary seniors' facility. But on the inside, a series of remarkable, late-in-life love stories of three different couples is unfolding.
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).
Contrary to the public stereotype of a youthful homosexual community, gay men and women do grow old. Silent Pioneers presents an upbeat focus on the lives of these people today, showing them living full and diverse lives and sharing concerns on ageing, health and housing, with other senior citizens. It also considers how support networks within the gay and lesbian community have enriched and strengthened their individual lives.
The chronic shortage of housing in Central Havana has pushed the city upwards, where life spills out onto the rooftops. Resilient and remarkable, these rooftop dwellers have a privileged point of view on a society in the process of major transformation.
A Ghanaian maintenance technician at a Virginia retirement community dreams of becoming an American citizen to provide a better life for his family. With their future at stake, he enlists the help of two elderly residents to prepare for the biggest test of his life: the US Citizenship exam.
Documents the true story of the final weeks of rehearsal for the Young at Heart Chorus in Northampton, MA, and many of whom must overcome health adversities to participate. Their music goes against the stereotype of their age group. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing new songs for a concert in their hometown.
A lighthouse keeper prepares his earthly funeral while trying to reconnect with his inner elf. Hulda and Trausti have shared a roof on the Icelandic coast for over seventy years. Her love of books is matched by his love of stones. When he tells her he wants to change his name to Elf she warns him that the family will reject him. Now, as his one hundredth birthday nears and Trausti senses the hand of death upon him, he is searching for an elf’s coffin…
Intimate portrait of four 70-year-old Quebec snowbirds who migrate every winter to Florida in search of sun, warmth and companionship. Behind their quest for love lies a desire to take advantage of this second and ultimate youth that comes with retirement.
A poetic and metaphysical view on a daily life routine in a distant nursing home, on a top of the mountain in Uzice, Serbia – the closest place to heaven. This is the last station on earth for old people that called “clients”. While they’re waiting for the end of their lives, prisoned in a desolate nursing home and their old-dying body, they are fighting for the freedom of their soul, the only place they can feel young and alive. A fight between light and darkness, suffering and acceptance, life and death.
Every weekend for six years, Jessica takes a bus from NYC, where she lives and works as a set decorator, to Boston, her hometown, where she cares for her dad, Aloysius, who is 87 and has advanced Alzheimer's disease.
Lou Colpé has been filming her grandparents since she was 15. In the process of this intense relationship, she notices some disconcerting signs in her grandmother: Alzheimer’s is slowing her down. A new film begins, a tougher one: the story of a couple that must face a tremendous challenge. Struggling against the tide of oblivion, the task of filmmaking becomes the ultimate act of resistance. Trying to retain the last images of her grandparents, an intimate conversation begins and echoes through the songs that play on the radio, conjuring lost stories and memories.
The director's grandfather is a blind fortune teller and his father a real-estate owner. They have grievances against each other for dismantling the old house. Grandfather thinks it's time for him to leave and asks Father to quit his job. At the same time, an accident happens at Father's construction site. They are entangled in dealing with the hatred from the past and the kinship that has always existed.
100UP is a film which investigates the will to live. It portrays a colourful selection of 100+ year old people from all over the world. They have lived for over a century and witnessed great historical events, but instead of dwelling on the past, they look ahead. With the clock inevitably ticking, these centenarians cling to life, set new goals with a joie de vivre, refusing to admit the betrayal of their deteriorating bodies. Time is both their enemy and their friend. They have overcome diseases, lost partners and some of them survived their own children. Nevertheless, these active, curious and creative 100+ year olds are amazingly good at restarting every new day.