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Channel 4


 1 x 50 minutes
Transmitted August 2007
A Century Films production
for Channel 4

Original Music
Will Grove-White
Daniel Teper
Researcher
Ruth Nicklin
Executive Producers
Katie Bailiff
Editor
Alan Mackay
Filmed & Directed by
Daisy Asquith

 

The Oldest People in the World (2007)

Award-winning filmmaker Daisy Asquith asks some of the oldest people in the world the question everyone wants answered - what is the secret to long life?

Emma Tillman is 114 and the oldest person in the world. Her enormous family is coming to Connecticut for a party - at the last count there were 39 great-grandchildren, 17 great great-grandchildren, 10 great great great-grandchildren and 2 great great great great-grandchildren. In contrast, 112-year-old Gertrude Baines in downtown LA is the last surviving member of her family.

In Japan, we meet Tsuru, an active 100-year-old who runs a small shop and tends her garden in Okinawa, while over in Portugal, 113-year-old Maria de Jesus has to be wheeled out in a chair to take the sun in the afternoon. Back in England, we discuss life at 111 with Henry, who is the oldest man in England - he stresses the importance of having a good sense of humour.

This revealing film journeys across three continents to give an extraordinary insight into what it's like to have lived over three centuries.


Oldest People
Photograph: Casey Orr

"The film is strewn with nuggets of unexpected human interest"
The Times.

"[a] moving and sensitive film"
Daily Mail.