Is there any way to slow or even prevent the ravages of time? Veteran presenter Johnny Ball looks back over the 45 years that Horizon, and he, have been on air to find out what science has learned about how and why we grow old. Charting developments from macabre early claims of rejuvenation to the latest cutting-edge breakthroughs, Johnny discovers the sense of a personal mission that drives many scientists and asks whether we are really any closer to achieving the dream of immortality.

Is there any way to slow or even prevent the ravages of time? Veteran presenter Johnny Ball looks back over the 45 years that Horizon, and he, have been on air to find out what science has learned about how and why we grow old. Charting developments from macabre early claims of rejuvenation to the latest cutting-edge breakthroughs, Johnny discovers the sense of a personal mission that drives many scientists and asks whether we are really any closer to achieving the dream of immortality.
2012-07-17
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2.0Fernando is an actor and theater teacher who, at the age of 74, is impelled to be the protagonist of himself in an experience that blurs the boundaries between the documentary and the fictional. Faced with a delicate problem in his heart, he follows a life full of love for art, where education emerges as a powerful transforming element of reality.
0.0Every single day of 2022 represented by one single uncut, unedited shot. The result: the year in moments.
6.0For over 80 years, Merle Hayden has crusaded to recruit members to the utopian movement Lawsonomy. Founded by aircraft pioneer Alfred Lawson, Lawsonomy advocates for economic reform and clean, communal living that transforms followers into a "New Species" that will benefit the human race either in this life or the next. Merle joined Lawson as a teenager and never looked back. His high school sweetheart Betty Kasch, however, is tired of Lawson coming between them. Reunited after over 60 years apart, non-believer Betty wants Merle to join her in Florida. Merle's commitment to preserving Lawson's legacy, artifacts currently rotting in a barn alongside a Wisconsin highway, has Betty worried Merle may leave her for Lawson once again.
4.0The 94-year-old Robert Frank’s unique recordings of his fellow artists Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg, which he had salvaged from his own archive for Harry Smith at the Breslin Hotel.
4.8Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).
0.0Mary Bauermeister is considered the mother of the Fluxus movement. In an attic on Cologne's Lintgasse, she made art history in the early 1960s alongside personalities such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Nam June Paik. Today, at the age of 85, she has no intention of stopping. From morning till night, this extraordinary artist works in her studio near Cologne: a magical place.
0.0Canadian seniors over 65 are staying active through philanthropy, the arts, volunteerism, education, entrepreneurship, or the workplace. Profiled here are a fashion tycoon gone back to school in his 80s, a 95 year old who builds and flies airplanes, a competitive darts player and painter without hands, an entrepreneur, an avid community volunteer, and a couple in their 90s who continue to teach roller skating.
7.5Hardly could anybody tell that 87 years old Lou has had Alzheimer’s disease. Over the years, Lou has forgotten almost everyone but firmly believes that 88 years old Feng is the one she is going to spend the rest of her life with.
0.0In a decaying Soviet-era retirement home, a vibrant group of elders cling to life by staging Shakespeare. Yet loneliness lingers beyond the theater’s doors, until drama begins to blur with reality.
7.7Every week, two friends born 67 years apart share their life stories in a senior home's living room. The younger friend convinces the 107-year-old lady to join her in an adventure: a road trip to the sea.
On the outside, it looks like any ordinary seniors' facility. But on the inside, a series of remarkable, late-in-life love stories of three different couples is unfolding.
0.0BELOW SURFACE reveals the extraordinary power of community through an unlikely subject: a YMCA Aquafit class. The documentary gathers numerous moving stories of a multicultural and multi-generational Aquafit class to demonstrate how kindness and caring for others, combined with exercise, can be an antidote for grief, stress, and physical illness. The heartwarming honesty of the participants is a reminder of the power we all have to support one another.
10.0A lighthouse keeper prepares his earthly funeral while trying to reconnect with his inner elf. Hulda and Trausti have shared a roof on the Icelandic coast for over seventy years. Her love of books is matched by his love of stones. When he tells her he wants to change his name to Elf she warns him that the family will reject him. Now, as his one hundredth birthday nears and Trausti senses the hand of death upon him, he is searching for an elf’s coffin…
"Work While You Have the Light" is a feature documentary by a multi-generational directing team that examines professional women who are over seventy years old and still working.
0.0A new documentary that follows master Haida weaver Delores Churchill on a journey to replicate a spruce root hat discovered with the Long Ago Person Found. The 300-year-old traveler was discovered in British Columbia and DNA testing discovered living descendants in Canada and Alaska. Her search crosses cultures and borders, and involves artists, scholars and scientists. The project raises questions about understanding and interpreting ownership, knowledge and connection.
6.9At Baycrest, an old-age home in Toronto, we follow a social worker as she talks to residents, particularly Max, Claire, Ida, and Rachel. The film opens on Claire's birthday, she's 89; Max, a tiny cheerful man, is her close friend. Rachel is lonesome, missing her son, complaining he rarely visits. Ida relies on memory for her solace. Helen has no memory and doesn't recognize her daughter; her moods swing. Murray keeps his cap on and likes women. Staff members bring medication, provide care, and offer small talk. Memory is fleeting: Claire re-experiences the death of a close companion several times, each time without remembering her previous grieving. Lives are circumscribed
7.8100UP is a film which investigates the will to live. It portrays a colourful selection of 100+ year old people from all over the world. They have lived for over a century and witnessed great historical events, but instead of dwelling on the past, they look ahead. With the clock inevitably ticking, these centenarians cling to life, set new goals with a joie de vivre, refusing to admit the betrayal of their deteriorating bodies. Time is both their enemy and their friend. They have overcome diseases, lost partners and some of them survived their own children. Nevertheless, these active, curious and creative 100+ year olds are amazingly good at restarting every new day.
9.0What happens after death? Lila Ribi's 100-year-old grandmother Greti always has the same answer: There is nothing after death. The filmmaker sees things differently.