The Silver Foxes 2: Shape Up America

Silberdisteln

Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

An elderly widow must find meaning and activity in her life when her son suggests she is no longer capable of handling her own affairs.

Recently widowed after 41 years of marriage, Frank Walsh meets the outgoing Florence, sparking joy back into his life again. However, there is clear disapproval of her from his grown children, especially his eldest son Robert. As Frank and Florence grow closer in their relationship, Robert begins to change his perspective on their commitment and devotion to one another.

When a professional matchmaker’s own marriage loses its spark, she seeks to recharge the relationship by asking her husband out on a blind date. As Mother’s Day approaches and their romance starts to rekindle, she wonders if her career-driven husband will finally learn to put his family’s needs before his job.

Harry and Emily are two of the livelier residents of a London old people's home. When they decide to get married, things prove less simple.

An aging highlander from the village of Kremna, on Tara mountain, heads for Belgrade accompanied by a ninety-three year old war veteran. He wants to find out what happened to his request for the reconstruction of his water mill, which is 300 years old and was destroyed in a storm a while ago. The two old men wisely and calmly accept their losses.

Paul and Paula are partners in their profession as comic artists and best friends in their private lives. They also have the same problem: being overweight! When Paul's school sweetheart Mariah suddenly turns up and is about to move to the city, Paul decides to lose weight. But he breaks his leg during his first attempt at fitness. And how do you burn a lot of calories despite breaking your leg? By popping! The results are impressive and gradually everyone around him falls for the sex diet. Eventually even Paula, who persuades her good old friend Paul to have sex with her. After all, they know each other inside out and don't want anything else from each other, or do they?

55 years ago, on October 1 1968, the first brand advertising spot appeared on the French television screen. Over the next three decades, thousands of creative little films would seduce and build our collective memory. Kitschy or cult spots, humor, slogans, music, stars, gimmicks, grand spectacle or sex appeal: during its golden age, how did advertising convince? Thierry Ardisson has brought together almost 400 advertising clips to relive the era of the conquest of minds and wallets.

Melanie loves her work, but often forgets about her boyfriend. He feels neglected. Later, she takes some time for him, but her work gets in the way again. This leads to a big argument that ends in a break-up. To relax, Melanie goes to a massage studio. There she tells the Thai masseuse about her problems. After the massage, Melanie lies down in her bed. When she wakes up the next morning, she has aged decades. She tries to find out what happened. But she has to come to terms with the fact that she is now 70 years old.

Two retired fishing buddies stumble on an unmarked suitcase filled with three million dollars in cash. Then the fun starts flying as fast as bullets.

A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.

The saga of fitness, which exploded in the 1980s and contributed, in its own way, to liberating women's bodies.

An jolly gang of elderly people plan to rob a bank.

City council of Prilep, Macedonia, decide to ruin the old part of the town and built new housings there. Unable to stop the demolition, the shoemaker Dimko and other local craftsmen throw an all-night party for the memory of the last day of bazaar.

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.