Autumn Gold

The makers of this documentary elegantly show us how well one can preserve a healthy spirit, a vigorous mind and admirable levels of fitness in an aging body. The protagonists include the Viennese centenarian Alfred Proksche, who paints female nudes in his spare time, the 94-year-old Italian discus thrower Gabre Gabric-Calvesi, 93-year-old Herbert Liedtke, a ferocious sprinter from Stockholm, and Jiří Soukup, an 82-year-old high-jumper from Hradec Králové. For them, preparing for the championships, and the individual competitions themselves, is primarily a race against time. The film looks at the private lives of these aged athletes, whose greatest challenge is not about beating a world record, but their age. Despite this, they still hope that their performances next year will be a little bit better.