Celebrate Creative Aging! 

Film Screenings at the AGA – June 10^th and 12^th, 2010

The Creative Age Festival is a celebration of creative aging. It encourages seniors to become more involved in arts programs and celebrates the contributions that senior artists have made in the arts field. As part of this festival the AGA is hosting two inspirational film screenings that celebrate creative aging through the arts, organized and sponosred inpart by the AHHM Program at the University of Alberta.

Each screening (Buena Vista Social Club and I Remember Better When I Paint – see below) will be followed by comments offered by our invited panellists, and an interactive audience Q&A.

---

Everyone is welcome to attend!! 

FREE admission (pay what you can; on a first come/ first seated basis).

 

Thursday, June 10, 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. 
Art Gallery of Alberta, Ledcor Theatre (Lower Level) - FREE (PWYC)

Buena Vista Social Club (1999, 105 min)

This documentary follows Ry Cooder on a trip to Cuba in search of musicians who had performed at the Buena Vista Social Club, a famous nightclub in Havana in the 1940s. It includes footage from Cuba as the musicians share stories about their lives and their love of music, along with concert footage in Amsterdam and New York City. This documentary compellingly (and joyfully!) explores the idea of recovery of creativity in old age.

This is my dream come true — a young man's dream in an old man's body. If you had told me three years ago this was going to happen I would have said to you were crazy. I retired once. Now I never want to stop. Singing has given me a reason to live again. - Ibrahím Ferrer 

Discussants

·         Bill Hallam (Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers)

·         Rodrigo Lyola (People's Poets)

·         Regula Qureshi (Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, University of Alberta)

Reserve your ticket online, go to https://purchase.youraga.ca/public/auto_choose_ga.asp?area=1

 

Saturday, June 12th, 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. 
Art Gallery of Alberta, Ledcor Theatre (Lower Level) - FREE (PWYC)

I Remember Better When I Paint (2009, 54 min) 
Narrated by Oscar-winning actress Olivia de Havilland, this documentary illustrates the positive impact of art and other creative therapies on people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Among those featured in this film are noted physicians and Yasmin Aga Khan, president of Alzheimer's Disease International and daughter of Rita Hayworth, who had Alzheimer's and took up painting while struggling with the disease. This film begins by considering the story of Hilda, a 90 year old woman with Alzheimer’s who had been a painter in her earlier years. When she was reintroduced to art in the nursing facility she lived in she became calmer, more focused, more receptive to communication and connecting with others. Physicians and others interviewed in the film consider the question of whether art therapies should be considered a core treatment option for Alzheimer’s patients – and why?

Discussants

·         Jessie Beier (Art Gallery of Alberta)

·         Arlene Huhn (Alzheimer Society, Alberta and Northwest Territories)

·         Adrian Wagg (Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta)

Reserve your ticket online, go to https://purchase.youraga.ca/public/auto_choose_ga.asp?area=27

 

What is the Creative Age Festival?

The Creative Age Festival celebrates arts and aging by showcasing arts-based workshops, performances, films on creative aging, a symposium, and many other events. This celebration of creative aging has been organized to recognize the vital contributions of the arts in relation to lifelong learning, creative expression, health and well-being in later life. It aims to foster increased participation in the arts in later life by recognizing and encouraging arts engagement in later life and quality arts-based programming. In addition, this festival celebrates the ongoing contributions and achievements of senior artists!

We invite you to come out and celebrate the rise of the Creative Age – a time when we can explore or reconnect with our own creativity – both as individuals, and also in community!

For more information about the Creative Age Festival– go to www.creativeagefestival.ca

For more information about the film screenings, – email pbrett-maclean@med.ualberta.ca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---