A Day and an Eternity (2009)

Original title: Ein Tag und eine Ewigkeit

In her film “A day and An Eternity”, Anna Hepp takes a look back over the last days of her grandmother’s 94-year life. The old woman lived alone, and Hepp accompanied her everyday life in the cramped confines of her apartment. In this place, the same gestures and the same routine, which had established themselves over the years, took place every day. Anna Hepp’s black-and-white pictures document the traces of age without impinging upon the old woman’s dignity and independence. The traces are engraved in the sagging skin, the shakiness in her hands and the tiredness in her eyes. The camera concentrates on Dorothea’s body whose movements determine the rhythm of the pictures. In long shots, Hepp makes space so that the apparent triviality of the moment can develop into an entire life story.