A Life in Color
Documentary | 71 min | AT | 2025
“Eleanor is a free spirit. She doesn’t like routines; she likes things to be new and exciting. And even though her “bones creak,” she enjoys life to the full. Death gets on her nerves. She acts according to her own whims and adores the young waiter Peter at her favourite diner. A gentle film about an extraordinary heroine that is lots of fun.“
Ina Borrmann, DOK.fest München
IN CINEMA
March 4, Votivkino Vienna, 7:30 p.m.
March 5, Moviemento Linz, 6:00 p.m.
March 7, Volkskino Klagenfurt, 7:30 p.m.
March 8, Cinema Paradiso St. Pölten, 12:30 p.m.
March 8, Leokino Innsbruck, 8:00 p.m.
March 10, Kino Freistadt, 8:00 p.m.
March 12, KIZ Royal Graz, 6:30 p.m.
March 14, Programmkino Wels, 8:00 p.m.
March 17, Das Kino Salzburg, 6:00 p.m.
About the film
Eleanor and I met during the production of my first documentary, Leaving the Nest. I had just arrived in New York and was looking for an apartment when she invited me to stay with her. I moved in that very same day. Over the years, a close friendship developed, and at her favorite diner we were greeted with “The usual?” as soon as we walked in. When one day a young waiter began to take an interest in her, Eleanor visibly blossomed. What I initially mistook for being in love turned out to be Eleanor’s fierce attachment to life. It was an engagement with her identity, her self-acceptance, and the expectations placed on her as an older woman.
With Eleanor, age never played a role for me. When you spoke with her, it completely faded into the background. She was open, curious about the world, and utterly unconventional. There was something ageless about her presence. In many of my films, I consciously focus on female protagonists of advanced age, partly because I feel they are underrepresented. Older people are often reduced dramaturgically to certain images: the quirky, the odd, or the harmlessly eccentric. Feelings such as sexuality, desire, and love are frequently denied to them or treated as a joke. As a former civilian service worker in a nursing home, however, I can attest that sexuality does not disappear in old age; it is simply tabooed.
A Life in Color is a homage to the longing for meaning, beauty, and closeness. And to Eleanor’s unwavering commitment to life, which shines despite, or perhaps precisely because of, its peculiarities and imperfections.
Axel Stasny
Credits
With Eleanor Ambos, Peter Anastasiou, Tom Taylor, a.o. | Editor: Cordula Werner | Music: LYLIT | Score Mixing: Andreas Lettner | Sound Design & Re-recording mixer: Alex Winkler | 2nd camera: Colin Sonner | Written, directed & cinematography by Axel Stasny
With the support of the Austrian Film Institute, City of Vienna, Upper Austria
Theatrical distribution (AT):
Dim Dim Filmverleih
+43 664 5285633 | info@dimdimfilm.com | www.dimdimfilm.com
World Sales:
sixpackfilm
+43 52609900 | office@sixpackfilm.com | www.sixpackfilm.com
© 2025 Stasny Film GmbH
Awards
CROSSING EUROPE Award – Local Artist, 2025
Nomination Austrian Documentary Award (ADA) Ethnocineca International Documentary Film Festival, 2025
Nomination DOK.deutsch DOK.fest München, 2025
International Competition Documentary 54th Kyiv International Film Festival Molodist
Brugger Dokumentarfilmtage, 2025
Frauenfilmtage St. Pölten, 2026
Frauenfilmtage Klagenfurt, 2026
Press
DOK.fest 2025 – Film Talk | Youtube
the gap – Festivaltagebuch Ethnocineca 2025, Eintrag 1: Geister der Vergangenheit | Website
subtext.at – Vom Leben, der Liebe und dem Alter | Website
Radio FRO – Kino für die Ohren – Weibliche Lebensrealitäten | Website | Download
Poster
