The AGE-C project presented at the Documentary Summer School of the 2024 Locarno Film Festival
On August 13th, Dr. Gloria Dagnino from the University of Udine research unit was invited to give a lecture as part of the Documentary Summer School organised by the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) within the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival (7-17 August 2024).
First launched in 2000, the Documentary Summer School (DSS) is a one-week residential programme organized by USI as part of the Locarno Academy, a multi-faceted educational project organized within the Locarno Film Festival. The DSS is opened to international graduate and post-graduate students, as well as emerging filmmakers, who are interested in exploring current and future trends in documentary filmmaking. The faculty comprises academic experts and industry practitioners.
This year, Dr. Gloria Dagnino was invited to give a lecture, titled “Filming age in an ageing society”, which illustrated the premises, objectives, and preliminary results of the AGE-C research project. Dr. Dagnino’s lecture opened with the presentation of key data on the demographic transition taking place worldwide, which will lead to 1 in 6 people being aged 60+ years by 2030. Moreover, by 2050 the number of people aged 80+ will triple, reaching 426 million globally, according to the World Health Organization.
Against such backdrop, how does cinema – and screen-based media more generally – contribute to shape the imagery and the meanings of ageing and old age? Drawing on cultural gerontology literature and a number of cases, selected among arthouse and popular film works of both fiction and non-fiction, Dr. Dagnino illustrated two of the master narrative frameworks that have been characterizing the cinematic representation of old age in the past decades: the so-called “narrative of decline” (see Morganroth Gullette 1997; 2004) and the paradigm of “successful ageing” (see Rowe and Kahn 1997). The former describes those narrations that associate ageing with inevitable physical and cognitive deterioration. Whereas “coming of age” stories featuring young characters focus on progress and growth, the “narratives of decline” trace an opposite trajectory, whereby ageing characters lose physical and mental strength, material and symbolical resources, and are increasingly isolated and de-humanized. For film audiences, such depictions contribute to fuel a fear of their own ageing, as well as to otherize older individuals. On the other hand, films championing the “successful ageing” concept present ageing characters as physically and mentally fit, engaged in productive activities and in romantic and sexual relations. Whist the successful ageing narrative has proved effective in overcoming a predominantly negative view of ageing, critics also pointed out some criticalities inherent to this concept, such as: an excessive reliance on individual responsibility, to the detriment of more collective approaches to healthy ageing, and a lack of consideration for intersectional factors like gender, class and race that affect the ageing experience.
The lecture was followed by a stimulating discussion with the DSS participants on the distinct challenges of filming age in fiction and non-fiction films, and how cultural specificities influence cinematic representations of old age across different European countries, North and South America, and China.
Written by: Dr. Gloria Dagnino
Image credit: Eleonora Benecchi, 2024