In Life according to Anton we meet Anton, who is 87. He has inherited the farm that time has almost taken. The nine cows live as long as Anton does. It is a covenant.
Anton’s living in the past. His time with the cows, the hours of the day and the seasons, is his only present. It is cyclical and beautiful; life has its eternity of nature’s repetitions, but the family farm is now a ruin, the growing vines have pushed the windows into the beautiful living room and winds around the furniture – no one has been here in decades.
Family and neighbors care for the old, stubborn man, but they are also worried. Anton puts the Danish welfare state to the test, as he insists on taking care of himself.
Original title (Danish): Livet ifølge Anton
Director: Iben Haahr Andersen
Producer: Lise Saxtrup
Scriptwriter: Gorm Rasmussen
Cinematographers: Iben Haahr Andersen
Editor: Grete Møldrup
Composer: Rasmus Møldrup
Supported by The Danish Film Institute and DR.
BIOGRAPHY
Director Iben Haahr Andersen has a long history in the world of documentary film, first as a sound engineer, graduated from the Danish Film School, then as a director. Characteristic of her films is a close and personal relationship to the unique destinies she portrays. That closeness creates relevant narratives that have reached a wide audience in Denmark (and internationally). In a poetic way and with an eye for the whimsical, she told the story of 87-year-old Anton, who lives alone on his family farm (Life according to Anton, 2015), about the fisherman Poul, who at a late age came out as gay and married the man Mai from Thailand (My Love, 2013), the story of the 80-year-old electronic soundmaker Else Marie Pade (Lyd på liv, 2006), the story of Kirsten, a former ambassador’s wife, and Fernande, a 75-year-old river barge captain, who form a special friendship on the Seine in Paris (Two Women on a River, 1996). All her movies show the diversity of life.
FILMOGRAPHY
2022 “The World is Out of Focus”
2017 “Heroines of the Pipes”
2016 “Xenia-confessions of a Truck driver”
2015 “In Light of the Revolution – about Women and Art in Cairo”
2015 “Life according to Anton”
2012 “My Love“
2009 “Hello my name is lesbian”
2006 “Sound on Life”
2001 “Kids in Action”
1996 “Two Women on a River”
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