21Jun
Lousy: Love in the Time of Dementia
This brief, thoughtful, and intriguing video by Frank Silverstein shares 3 years of visits with his parents, Joe and Lynn Silverstein, as they age-in-place in their home.
Dementia/Alzheimer’s
Click on any title or image to read full review
01Feb
The Father (reviewed by Jim Vanden Bosch)
Nearly all the reviews of The Father in mainstream publications are enthralled with the film’s attempt to see dementia from the inside out—that is, from within the mind of the person experiencing dementia.
01Feb
The Father (reviewed by Rose Capp, PhD)
In the course of his seminal work in the dementia care field, Tom Kitwood noted that it was impossible “ … to enter fully into the experiential frame of another person, simply because each person is unique” (Kitwood, 1997, p. 71). Kitwood went on to observe that stepping into and describing the world of someone living with dementia, particularly in the more advanced stages, involved additional complexities, given that first-person accounts typically describe the early stages of dementia.
01Feb
The Father (reviewed by Cyndy Hunt Luzinski, MS,RN)
After Anthony Hopkins won the 2021 Oscar for best actor in The Father, our Dementia Together team viewed the film and found it creatively compelling and hopelessly heart-breaking—everything the cultural “tragedy narrative” around dementia would have us believe is inevitable and true.
01Feb
The Father (reviewed by Paulan Gordon)
The Father does an excellent job of portraying the lack of insight by a person living with dementia.
16Sep
Life in Stills
The themes of memory, love, and loss that are central to Angel’s Perch are also found in the documentary film, Life in Stills , but with a different mixture. The grandmother–grandson relationship in this film is of an entirely different character than that presented in Angel’s Perch .
14Sep
Old People Driving: A Film About the End of the Road
Shaleece Haas’s award-winning short video, Old People Driving, is a charming film. This video focuses on two very old, cognitively intact men—Haas’s 96-year-old grandfather, Milton, and 99-year-old Herbert. The choice of Milton and Herbert signals a useful view into our future, as ranks of drivers aged 85 and older are swelling with the population aging of the oldest old.
11Nov
The Mole Agent
Have you ever wished to be a “fly on the wall” in a residential care facility so you could observe the kind of care being given to a family member, or just to see the kind of dynamic being played out between residents and staff? Watching The Mole Agent will give you a sense of what that would be like.
29Mar
Head Full of Honey
Many contemporary films that deal with dementia focus on the role of the caregiver and the complex issues involved in supporting a family member living with dementia. Head Full of Honey falls into this category, but is unusual in having a youthful protagonist in the central caring role.
11Mar
The Story of Shadow and Light: Giving Voice to an Alzheimer’s Journey
Who would have thought that the experience of living with Alzheimer’s could be set to music? In Eugene, Oregon a music conductor, Diane Retallack, having experienced two generations of dementia in her family, knew that there could be great value in bringing a musically artistic expression to that experience.
11Feb
Alive Inside: Reprise
Perhaps the greatest power of documentary film is its ability to reveal to us experiences, feelings, and events that might have otherwise remained beyond our awareness and our imagination. Two years ago in this space ( Scheidt, 2013 ), I reviewed a brief version of “Alive Inside,” a video by Michael Rossato-Bennett.
31Jan
You See Me
The premise of this interesting and multilayered film is revealed at the outset: Videographer Linda Brown created You See Me (http://youseememovie.com/) in hopes of achieving a better understanding of her father, Stanley Brown, a man she loved but “wonder if I ever really knew.”
31Jan
I Remember Better When I Paint
I Remember Better When I Paint is perhaps the most important documentary to date dealing with our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and the nearly 47 million persons worldwide currently afflicted with dementia. It should be required viewing of every gerontology educator and practitioner, regardless of years in rank.
31Jan
There is a Place
There Is a Place is a brief video about the salutary impact that active and shared musical experience has on elders with dementia. It is a film that should come with a warning label for viewers, especially those already who know that music has the potential to reveal the essential sense of self presumed lost to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease
21Jan
My Father’s House: A Journey of Love and Memory
At one point in this remarkable film, 89-year-old Dr. Peter Reimann, accompanied on piano by daughter Hannah Reimann, sings this brief German art song from Schubert’s Die Winterreise No. 15. The Raven (Die Krähe).
06Sep
What They Had
In the opening scenes of this captivating film, an older woman gets out of bed in the dark, gets partially dressed, and walks out of the house in a light jacket into a snowy night. The shot holds on her walking down the street for several seconds until she disappears into a shower of heavy snowfall. A wife/mother has disappeared, setting off panic on the part of her husband and children.