Maria Loohufvud and Love Martinsen’s. Calendar Girls, a documentary about an over 55-year-old dance troupe whose use of glitter, feathers, bling, and heavy eye makeup would make RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants look under-dressed, recite while dancing as rainbow unicorns, “We use magic from our hearts to make the world a better place,”

At first glance, there is a natural response (driven by societally driven unconscious biases on how ‘older women’ should look and behave) to mock or at least look askance at these older women strutting their stuff rife with flabby arms and wrinkles.

What are they doing? Trying to look young? Trying to recapture lost youth? Make fools of themselves? Why don’t they cover-up?

By the end of the hour-long documentary what’s clear is that none of the above is the case.

These women are teaching all of us how to live life on our own terms. How to be BRAVE. BOLD. And above all BE TRUE TO OURSELVES.

The documentary is currently ‘doing the circuit’ of festivals and competitions. It won a prestigious spot at the Sundance Film Festival and continues to inspire, provoke and confuse audiences across North America.

Last night’s screening by THIRD ACTion Film Festival is done. I hope you can find it somewhere else so that you too can be enchanted by these women who not only use the magic of their hearts to create a better world but whose friendship and sisterhood remind all of us that none of us have to take this journey of life alone. None of us can.

We are all going in the same direction. Why not glitter it up, throw on some bling and heavy eye makeup and dance your way into the dying light rather than, as Dylan Thomas once counseled, rage against it.

And, if you want to continue to shake-up unconscious biases about aging and get those sillies out, February’s My Sailor – My Love promises to be a moving, inspiring and provocative film about family, aging and Love. Perfect for Valentine’s Day (which is when it’s screening)

Visit the THIRD ACTion website later this week for details. Or, check out this review.

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