Si seguimos vivos
2010 · 24m · Cuba
Directed by Juliana Fanjul Espinoza
Genres: documentary
Tones: humorous, melancholic, tender
An award-winning EICTV documentary observing women in a geriatric residence as they strive to cross, as dignified as possible, a stage of life in which neither their bodies nor their memories respond as they would like; the film mixes harder scenes with tender and humorous ones, working over faces, bodies, places, and objects with empathy.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a geriatric doc to be maudlin, but Fanjul refuses the easy sentiment—she lets the women's humor and dignity puncture the melancholy, which means she's actually saying something harder about time than the usual elegiac treatment would dare.
This is observational documentary in the lineage of Wiseman and Depardon: formal restraint in the camera, elliptical editing that trusts the viewer, and the kind of face-centered composition that transforms aging from spectacle into portraiture—EICTV pedigree justified in every frame.
The film lives in a single recurring choice: letting silence sit after a resident speaks, letting the space between bodies in the frame mean something—it's a decision about respect and attention that transforms what could be patronizing into something luminous and alive.
Reviews
Mezclando escenas más duras con otras tiernas y hasta humorísticas, el film trabaja sobre los rostros y los cuerpos, sobre los lugares y los objetos, para dar cuenta de manera tan empática como humana de esa situación.