Young Hearts
2015 · 3m · Germany
Directed by Julia Wilczok, Nadine Schrader
Genres: documentary, romance
Three long-married couples in their seventies and eighties gather every Monday at a seniors' disco in Berlin-Steglitz, dancing and speaking candidly about a love and passion that has only deepened with age.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a seniors' disco doc to be either patronizing uplift or mournful—Wilczok and Schrader just let the couples speak, and somehow that refusal to narrate or sentimentalize becomes the subversion.
The film positions itself in the lineage of verité intimacy (Wiseman, the Maysles) while honoring an older, pre-ironic documentary tradition of simply witnessing; the editing respects the rhythm of speech and body over cuts for rhythm's sake.
The decision to shoot almost entirely on the dancefloor itself—bodies in motion, words over music, no cutaways to photographs or testimonial setups—forces the couple's presence to carry everything, and it does.
Festivals
- interfilm Berlin International Short Film Festival