There isn't a single talking head across the collective four and half hours of screen time among the films The Mole Agent, Dick Johnson Is Dead and The Truffle Hunters.
The feature documentaries, among the 15 on the Oscar shortlist, all center on subjects over 80 years old and deftly avoid onscreen cliches about the elderly by letting the characters craft their own stories while living their colorful lives.
The Mole Agent director Maite Alberdi did not set out to make a documentary about an octogenarian. She originally intended to profile a private detective, but quickly discovered that his newly hired spy, an 83-year-old widower named Sergio Chamy, was a much more compelling subject.
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