EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green is back in the Oscar conversation this year with his latest documentary, The Oldest Person in the World.
The film, distributed by Assembly Releasing, is set to begin its theatrical run on September 10 at Angelika Film Center in New York City and Sept. 18 in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, followed by a nationwide expansion. The Oldest Person in the World premiered at Sundance, followed by screenings at SXSW, True/False in Columbia, MO, DC/DOX in the nation’s capital, Hot Docs in Toronto, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece, and many other major festivals.
We have your exclusive first look at the film in the trailer above.
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Assembly Releasing
“The Oldest Person in the World is a decade-long odyssey chronicling the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive,” notes a release. The current record holder (in case you’re wondering) is 116-year-old Ethel May Caterham, who was born in 1909 in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, England. She turns 117 on August 21.
“As the title [of oldest person alive] inevitably passes from one supercentenarian to the next, director Sam Green traverses the globe to meet each new title holder,” the release continues, “his personal fascination with what the title means becoming entangled with events and milestones in his own life. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a poignant meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate and the joy and profound human experience of being alive.”
Courtesy of Catalina Kulczar
Green examined other Guinness World Records in his 2014 documentary feature The Measure of All Things. He earned an Oscar nomination in 2004 for The Weather Underground and was Oscar-shortlisted in 2023 for 32 Sounds. His other directing credits include A Thousand Thoughts (2018), The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (2012), and the 2018 nonfiction short Julius Caesar Was Buried in a Pet Cemetery.
The Oldest Person in the World takes an ostensibly simple premise and explores its deeper resonance.
“There’s a version of this [documentary] you could make that’s like, The oldest people, they’re so kooky! or The oldest people, they’re really something! At some point, we were pitching that, but the film doesn’t really have the material to deliver that,” Green explained in a recent interview with the IDA’s Documentary magazine. “All movies are like this—they seem very easy at first. When I started, I confused the oldest people with the woman from Harold and Maude [1971]. I thought they would all be these sassy old people, dropping bombs of wisdom. They’re not. When you’re 117, you’re not doing anything. You’re not saying profound things. Your life is very small, and you basically want to have a snack and take a nap.”
Courtesy of Yoni Brook
Green added, “I knew [the film] would be something else because I wasn’t interested in folksy stories from old people. I was interested in making a movie about time from the perspectives of people who have experienced the most time on the planet. It took a long time of playing with things to realize that if I filmed my kid [his young son Atlas Galasso Green], that could be a counterpoint. From there, the other stuff slowly started to seep into the piece. It’s one of the things I love about documentary: you set off with an idea, and the world tells you otherwise. The world is more interesting than what I could think up.”
The Oldest Person in the World is presented by Assembly Releasing, a Serenade, Aggregate and Free History Project production in association with The Department of Motion Pictures, Beachside, Cedar Road, Facet, Wavelength and Secret Sauce Media. Producers are Alison Byrne Fields and Josh Penn. Aaron Wickenden and Sam Green edited the film; cinematography is by Yoni Brook. William Ryan Fritch and T. Griffin composed the original score. Sound Design: Mark Mangini.
Executive Producers include Alex Turtletaub, Jennifer J. Pritzker, Maida Lynn, Julie Parker Benello, Jenifer Westphal, Marni Grossman, Roman Nesis, and Nina and David Fialkow.
Courtesy of Roberto Masiero
Expect sequels to this documentary.
“Green and the core creative team intend to continue filming the oldest person in the world for the rest of their lives, using the material to make a film every ten years,” states the release. “In this way, it will become an ever-evolving ‘living film,’ the form mirroring the ephemeral and impossible to predict nature of our existence.”
Watch the trailer for The Oldest Person in the World above.
