50 Years! Of Love? is a South African documentary film produced by Durga Shakti Films in which a filmmaker couple set out around the world to have an honest look at marriage far beyond the honeymoon and the "...happily ever after" cliches.
The documentary premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in 2008 and won the "Best South African Documentary" award. The film is 86 minutes long, with a 52-minute television version.
50 Years! Of Love? premiered on South African television on SABC1 on Tuesday 25 January 2011, at 21h00. It is an hour long (with commercials).
Synopsis
Feeling that marriage is one subject that people are poorly prepared for by most societies, a filmmaker couple set out around the world to have an honest look at marriage far beyond the honeymoon and the "...happily ever after" cliches.
Only then will they decide whether or not to take the giant step themselves.
Filmed in South Africa and western Canada, the filmmakers' research takes them to 50-year-old married couples in the USA, South Africa, Holland and India.
From couples that fought everyday of their lives to those that kept quiet through the storms of their relationship the filmmakers search to understand what makes a marriage work.
The topics touched upon in the film include sex after marriage, communication skills, adultery, polygamy and fear of death and divorce. The elderly couples come out with unabashed and surprising points of view.
All this is juxtaposed with the filmmakers' own relationship as they experience the unique stresses of an intercontinental love affair between two people who both have some unusual and deep-seated issues with marriage.
The film is laced with humour and layered with irony. You laugh, you cry, you get stretched, you go through a lot in 50 years of love.