IDFA’14: The Alliance of Women Film Journalists' EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary

Tea Time

by Maite Alberdi
Micromundo Producciones
| 70’ - 52’ | Chile / USA | 2014 | HDV |
Five elderly women religiously gather for tea, once a month, for the past 60 years. In these meetings, the friends argue and reconcile, evoke their common past, and try hard to show they are still current. Their personal stories and present events force them to question their education and beliefs. Despite all of them having attended the same religious school, they lived through a period of radical historic changes that few of them can comprehend and adapt. Afternoons, days, months and even years pass, and it seems that nothing in their lives changes, until the absence of one of them makes them go through a period of evident transformation.





My Love, Don't Cross That River

by Jin Moyoung
Argus Film
| 86’ | South Korea | 2014 | HD |
Mr. Byongman Jo is 98 years old, but still strong enough to carry lots of firewood. He always took care of his wife like a princess. The wife, Mrs. Gyeyeul Kang is 89 years old. She still cooks three meals a day for her husband and had never fed him a cold meal. They wear Korean traditional cloths all the time, go for a picnic with neighbours, and enjoy dance parties. They are still young. Recently, he is getting weak day by day, and sick. She starts to prepare the death of her husband for the next life with him.





Twilight of a Life

by Sylvain Biegeleisen
Zen Production Ltd, Take Five
| 70’ - 52’ | Belgium / Israel | 2015 | HD |
How a son and a mother aged 94 deals with aging in an optimistic way full of humor, sensitivity and hope. When the doctor announced me that my mother, aged 94 had just a few weeks to live, I left my home and came back to Belgium to say her goodbye. But my mother decided that the time to pass away has not yet come. We shared together weeks and months of uncertainty and mystery. I found myself filming hours of incredible conversations, humoristic situations, poetic moments. "Au Crepuscule d'une Vie" is an Ode to Life !





Before the Last Curtain Falls

by Thomas Wallner
Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion Köln GmbH & Co.KG , Savage Film
| 86’&52’ | Germany/Belgium | 2014 | HD |
The film dives deeply into the exceptional and heart-warmingstories of a group of transsexuals and drag queens in their sixties and seventies, who summon up their bravery to take the stage once again – perhaps for the last time.





The Optimists

by Gunhild Westhagen Magnor
Skofteland Film AS, Mantaray Film
| 90’ & 52’ & 3x39' | Norway | 2013 | HD |
The volleyball ladies THE OPTIMISTS (66-98) haven’t played a proper match in 30 years. Until now. Fearing age? Queen of the team Goro (98) might change your ideas. Many of us fear age. Youth is our modern world's ideal. These ballplaying ladies might change our ideas, and possibly make us realize that those who do get to experience old age are actually the lucky ones.