A delightful centenarian named Madeleine lives in a senior home in Canada. Full of vim and vigor, she spends her days knitting, chatting, and keeping comfortable in her modest rooms. When she befriends Brazilian-Canadian filmmaker Raquel Sancinetti, 67 years her junior, a beautiful relationship develops.
Sancinetti’s short film, “Madeleine,” emerged from the joyful, thoughtful, and tender weekly conversations the unlikely friends had over five years, along with Sancinetti’s desire to take her older companion on a road trip to the sea. Madeleine’s age—103 when the project began—meant her physical exertions were limited, and despite many attempts to convince her, Madeleine preferred to remain at home.
Sancinetti did have one powerful tool at her disposal, though, to organize another kind of trip—via the imagination. “We frequently discussed going on a road trip, so I decided to bring her out in the only way I could: through animation,” Sancinetti wrote in an editorial to accompany the Op-Docs series by The New York Times. “This short documentary was completed when Madeleine was 107 years old, and I consider myself very fortunate to have known her.”
“Madeleine” combines stop-motion animation and live action recordings in a poignant reflection on friendship, aging, and living life to its fullest. Born thousands of miles apart, their connection illustrates how beautiful—and unexpected—relationships can develop at different times of life. Sancinetti captures her friend’s infectious good humor and self-awareness with playfulness that also doesn’t shy away from the realities of one nearing the end of their life.
The short won several prestigious film festival prizes, including Québec Cinéma’s Prix Iris for Best Animated Short Film and the Canadian Screen Awards’ prize for Best Short Documentary, among others. See more on Vimeo.
