Harry Smith at the Breslin Hotel

Un cafè a l'Hamsa

2004

CHSLD

2020

François Delisle draws an intimate portrait of his mother in a nursing home. A chronicle of the daily life and medical care of a woman approaching the end, treated with love, respect and dignity.

Tracing Roots

2014

A new documentary that follows master Haida weaver Delores Churchill on a journey to replicate a spruce root hat discovered with the Long Ago Person Found. The 300-year-old traveler was discovered in British Columbia and DNA testing discovered living descendants in Canada and Alaska. Her search crosses cultures and borders, and involves artists, scholars and scientists. The project raises questions about understanding and interpreting ownership, knowledge and connection.

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

2005

At Baycrest, an old-age home in Toronto, we follow a social worker as she talks to residents, particularly Max, Claire, Ida, and Rachel. The film opens on Claire's birthday, she's 89; Max, a tiny cheerful man, is her close friend. Rachel is lonesome, missing her son, complaining he rarely visits. Ida relies on memory for her solace. Helen has no memory and doesn't recognize her daughter; her moods swing. Murray keeps his cap on and likes women. Staff members bring medication, provide care, and offer small talk. Memory is fleeting: Claire re-experiences the death of a close companion several times, each time without remembering her previous grieving. Lives are circumscribed

Behind the Rent Strike

1974

Kirby, on the outskirts of Liverpool, England, October 1972. A chronicle of the fourteen-month strike by thousands of tenants to protest against the £1 increase in council house rents due to the Housing Finance Act.

The Sand Island Story

1981

This short documentary chronicles a four-month period between 1979 and 1980 when residents of Hawaii's Sand Island "squatter" community attempted to resist eviction from the Honolulu shoreline - resulting in displacement, arrests, and the destruction of a community.

Havana, From On High

2019

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.

Valley of the Rulers

2019

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.

Mary Bauermeister - Eins plus eins ist drei

2021

The Wild Ones

2012

At 18, right after the Second World War, Birgitta Stenberg bought a one-way ticket to Europe. Far from Sweden, she plunges into a wild life with bohemians from around the world. She falls in love, gets exploited, takes drugs, and exploits others. Her life is forever shaped by these years and these people. A life on the fringe. In The Wild Ones she travels to places like New York, Paris and Rome, returning to former lovers of both sexes. They face their choices and the consequences. Was it truly free to live like that? Was it worth it?

100UP

2021

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.

Please Remember Me

2017

Hardly could anybody tell that 87 years old Lou has had Alzheimer’s disease. Over the years, Lou has forgotten almost everyone but firmly believes that 88 years old Feng is the one she is going to spend the rest of her life with.

Manlife

2017

For over 80 years, Merle Hayden has crusaded to recruit members to the utopian movement Lawsonomy. Founded by aircraft pioneer Alfred Lawson, Lawsonomy advocates for economic reform and clean, communal living that transforms followers into a "New Species" that will benefit the human race either in this life or the next. Merle joined Lawson as a teenager and never looked back. His high school sweetheart Betty Kasch, however, is tired of Lawson coming between them. Reunited after over 60 years apart, non-believer Betty wants Merle to join her in Florida. Merle's commitment to preserving Lawson's legacy, artifacts currently rotting in a barn alongside a Wisconsin highway, has Betty worried Merle may leave her for Lawson once again.

(Im)mortals

2022

What happens after death? Lila Ribi's 100-year-old grandmother Greti always has the same answer: There is nothing after death. The filmmaker sees things differently.

Mudder's Hands

2022

A dash of youth, a pinch of age, and an unrecorded recipe: Mudder's Hands is a charming documentary conversation about arthritis, centered around the tradition of baking Newfoundland raisin bread.