Cent'anni

Hope and anger intertwine in Maja Doroteja Prelog's first feature documentary, her partner's disease forcing her to turn the camera towards their delicate, often fraught relationship. Cent'anni acts as a chronicle of distressing rediscovery, Maja's painful time as a caregiver for Blaž, a cancer survivor, constantly returning as a sharp reminder of their contradicting expectations. Travelling through Italy to create a vivid portrait of his life-reaffirming attitude, the two share the control of the camera, often clashing over the shape of a visual journal filled with revealing moments of disarming vulnerability.

Prelog employs home videos and personal archive films to create an evocative portrait of a long-time relationship with Blaž, her high-school sweetheart. Grainy VHS clips of nostalgic quality offer valuable context about her childhood, which was burdened with a hearing affliction – a condition that inflicted a predisposition for passivity in relationships. The loose montage jumps in time, older footage making way for images shot with phones and professional cameras. The director, who also acts as the main off-screen narrator, achingly paints an image of a strained relationship, even before Blaž's disease. From argument to argument and a crushing confession about the possibility of parenthood, her wholehearted perspective on their bond takes shape. Over warm footage of seasons passing and their apartment coming together, her worried voice takes the viewer through months and years of her and Blaž's story. Suddenly, silence engulfs the screen, just before she recounts finding him on the bathroom floor.

As the camera witnesses his struggle with leukaemia, a palpable sense of genuine connection emerges between the two protagonists. Hopeful glimpses between gritty hospital windows shelter their bond from past disagreements, their and the camera’s focus consumed by the sore sprint towards survival. Turning her attention to the outside, the director captures a buoyant vision of nature, mirroring Blaž's aspiration to continue his enjoyment of the outdoors once he recovers. As greenery flourishes and butterflies glide across the screen, she professes her love for him. Against her anxious voice, Sebastian Zawadzki's musical arrangement chimes with hope, before being interrupted by the quiet desperation of her muted sob.

Slowly recovering and starting to get in shape for a project of extreme physical endurance, Blaž makes his presence felt, voicing his concerns and ambitions in brief home videos of relatable simplicity. Determined to endeavour on a cycling journey across the Italian peninsula from top to heel, he asks his partner to make a documentary of his demanding ride. On the road, what starts as an inspiring film of his determination and resilience ends up being an intimate chronicle of their relationship's pervasive discordance. The camera follows Blaž as he emphatically urges his handpicked director and her unseen crew to keep up with his rigorous routine. Pushed to the limit by his abrasive temperament, Maja becomes a character in a documentary that shifts the focus inward.

Dictating the pace of what should have been an idyllic journey, their strained conflicts uncover old disagreements and traumas. The camera becomes a tool for interrogation, probing the intricacies of a couple at a crossroads. As Maja stirs the restless narrative towards a place of meditation, her earnest search for a solution is expressed delicately, through her distressed on-screen presence and her affecting craft. Capturing the beauty of the Italian countryside and the vastness of imposing mountains, she creates a postcard that speaks to their shared love of nature - which soothes them individually but lacks the power to bridge the gap between them.

Cent'anni encapsulates a fearless look at the effects of devastating illness on an already fragile relationship, allowing unfiltered moments of vulnerability to unfold despite their unseen implications. Examining their relationship, the couple seems to get lost in their on-screen characters, their mutual affection losing its sense of purpose. As his unexpected sternness pushes her away, protagonist Maja finds consolation in momentary fragments of wistful aspiration, grasping onto filmmaking as a way to transform their relationship.