By William Wolf

LIVES WELL LIVED  Send This Review to a Friend

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[A Special showing of "Lives Well Lived" will take place at 7 p.m., October 30, at the JCC, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, and director Sky Bergman will be on hand to take part in a post-screening discussion.]

Director Sky Bergman’s has created an extraordinary and uplifting film, “Lives Well Lived.” Bergman is a successful photographer whose work has been widely displayed internationally at major museums, and who is a professor of photography and video at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. Some of her photographs can be seen in her book, “The Naked & The Nude: Images from the Sculpture Series.”

The saga of her Italian grandmother, whom she found vibrant at 103, inspired Bergman to look into lives of other seniors. The result is a captivating film that introduces an assortment of impressive seniors who talk about what they have done and are doing with their advanced years.

What makes the film special is that it is not only informative, but invitingly entertaining. The subjects visited and asked to express themselves are articulate and rich in anecdotes from their longevity. One woman does yoga at the age of 85. A 92-year-old doctor finds pleasure in making mozzarella. There are happy couples, as well as widows and widowers, and in the interviewing by director Bergman, they are prompted to tell the various ways they have found to keep enriching their lives.

No need to worry about such a documentary becoming pedantic. It is a pleasure to meet the folks, and while the film should entertain and even inspire oldsters, it should also be a wake-up call to today’s younger generation of viewers about appreciating what can be learned from the experiences of those in the older generation and also indicate the pleasures to be derived from interacting.

You meet 40 people as the subjects in “Lives Well Lived,” and they represent 3000 years of collective life experience. Think about that. A Shadow Distribution release. Posted July 18, 2018.

  

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