Getting Older is Wonderful

Getting Older is Wonderful

2023 · 57 min · Documentary

In 1988, writer Kader Abdolah fled Iran and arrived in the Netherlands at 33, without knowing a word of Dutch. Twenty-five years later, his novel The House of the Mosque was voted the second-best book ever written in Dutch. The son of a mute carpet repairman, Kader had been his father’s ears and voice since childhood. This documentary explores his journey, his perpetual search for words, and the delicate balance between embracing his new life and preserving his culture.

Directed by Fabrizio Polpettini · Written by Fabrizio Polpettini

Your Rating

Cast

Make it a double feature

2h 35m together

Getting Older is Wonderful

Mare's Nest

Both from Fabrizio Polpettini.

More from Fabrizio PolpettiniSee all →

Mare's Nest

Mare's Nest · 2026

MovieScience FictionDrama

Moon travels through a mysterious unexplained world free of adults. Moon meets a scholar turned sage and her translator in a mountain hut, where she tries to understand what is happening, based on a play by Don DeLillo. She meets many others who perform for her, show her a film, give her gifts, show her different possibilities for living. She observes and moves on into an unknown future.

Ícaros

Ícaros · 2014

MovieDocumentary

In the late 1970s, Marcel fled Catalonia to avoid conscription into the Spanish military. For 30 years he has been living in the tropical forests of Costa Rica, where he hosts ayahuasca ceremonies for young seekers from the West.

Color-Blind

Color-Blind · 2019

MovieDocumentary

A synaesthetic portrait made between French Polynesia and Brittany, Color-blind follows the restless ghost of Gauguin in excavating the colonial legacy of a post-postcolonial present.

Follow the Water

Follow the Water · 2023

Follow the Water

MovieDocumentary

Winter 2021, Atacama Desert, Chile. Around one of the largest lithium mines in the world, several protagonists tell of their attachment to this territory. The commitment of an indigenous woman for water rights, the doubts of scientists exploring the desert as an analogue to Mars, the belief of industrialists, the ghosts of colonisation and the stories of new explorers collide.

Above the Waterline

Above the Waterline · 2026

Above the Waterline

MovieDocumentary

In northern Chile, where the desert meets the ocean, a few solitary fishermen have made their home. Despite the arid land, the sea seems to offer them everything they need. It is a fragile balance, since this haven of freedom becomes an arena for military exercises every year.

Memories of Lightning

Memories of Lightning · 2026

Memories of Lightning

Sibilla, a radio reporter, travels to a small town in central Italy to make an audio documentary. There, in 1982, a young woman had been killed, in an act of apparently inexplicable violence. Through voices and sounds, Sibilla evokes the ghosts of a past event, recording the last reverberations of the victim’s memory.

August

Two children in the countryside. Time lazily goes by on a hot month of August as they long for adventure.

A Custom of the Sea

A Custom of the Sea · 2021

A Custom of the Sea

MovieDocumentary

Porto Maurizio, where the director, who lives in France today, grew up, is located on the Ligurian coast. The village is the starting point for a cinematic journey into the past that spans a surprisingly wide arc to a time when Muslim pirates, the corsairs, haunted the Mediterranean and took Europeans as slaves. To this end, the film light-handedly draws from the rich fund of film history and its iconography.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter