A hymn to life and old age

Films about choirs, the power of singing and making music together, the discovery of one's own musicality and the associated liberation seem to have been released in cinemas in an almost inflationary manner in recent years - both documentary and fictional. Sven Halfar from Hamburg also portrays an amateur choir of over-70s in "Heaven can wait - Wir leben jetzt". And yet he does not simply tell the story of this already extraordinary choir. Instead, he portrays many individual fates that form a relief of this choir and an entire generation.

Take 84-year-old Ingrid, for example. Her whole life has always been a fulfilment of duty, as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother and later as a daughter again. She has never had time or space for feelings. This woman appears tense and withdrawn, always focussed. And yet she blossoms during choir rehearsals, just as she does on stage. "I don't want to have to do anything anymore," she says at one point. It's a feeling that many people of all ages can sympathise with. Or 79-year-old Moni, who has always lived a self-determined life, held her own as a marine biologist in a male-dominated world and whose favourite breakfast consists of cigarettes and coffee. Then she breaks her arm. Suddenly she is afraid of being alone, afraid of her own frailty and yet she doesn't lose heart. And then there is Captain Volker, who only discovered love and deep emotions through singing, or Diet, who sees singing as his therapy.

Sven Halfar, who has already made documentaries about Peter Maffay and the rock band Silly, which was founded in the GDR, gets very close to his protagonists. He doesn't show interview sequences in which he asks them about stages of their lives, he accompanies them and lets them tell their stories. The choir singers filmed some of the scenes themselves at home due to coronavirus. But it seems that they tell and act in an even more relaxed and honest way.

Halfar came across the choir by chance. A friend, whose father sings in it, had taken him to a concert at the St. Pauli Theatre. "From the very first note, I was surprised by the energy that emanated from these people. There was an immediate emotional connection that I wanted to scrutinise," he recalls. That was more than three years ago. Initially without a concept or funding, he started filming. "When I first immersed myself in the world of singers and shot the first situational scenes, many people asked me what it was supposed to be. I didn't really know myself. But I immediately had the feeling that something unique could be created here," says Halfar, who once studied at the Hamburg Film Academy, now the Hamburg Media School. So he gave himself and his protagonists time. "As a documentary filmmaker, you need to have a feeling for people, give them space to open up, take them seriously and never show them off."

Halfar manages to do this brilliantly. He shows people at peace with themselves, taking a conciliatory view of life, old age and death. The sentence that old age only has advantages is uttered more than once and you can't help but believe it. "There is a past and there is a future, but what if the future doesn't come? What remains is only now. What I do now, I do now," said 83-year-old Joanne. It is an attitude to life that all of the people portrayed share, albeit to varying degrees. "They all live much more intensely because they know that their time is finite," Halfar also realised.

"Heaven can wait" is not a heavy-handed film of encouragement for older people, but a portrait of a generation that has rarely learnt to show their feelings and give space to their own needs. It celebrates life without omitting suffering. It is a hymn to old age without ever pandering to it. And so Halfar's film can also be seen as a socially relevant contribution: Youth and youthfulness are not the measure of all things.

The documentary received the Audience Award at the Leipzig Film Art Fair in mid-September. It is a clear sign that it not only appeals to different generations, but also connects them, touches their souls and gives them hope. "I didn't want to portray old people as pitiable, but as self-confident and full of life, enjoying every day - you're never too old to live your dreams," says Halfar. He has succeeded.

"Heaven can wait" opens in German cinemas on 12 October.