Film Forum

WINNER, BEST CANADIAN FEATURE DOCUMENTARY,
2025 HOT DOCS INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

Agatha Bock, a petite, slope-backed nonagenarian, labors in her massive vegetable garden, maintains her rural Manitoba home with astounding DIY resourcefulness—baking and canning almost everything she eats—and needs no assistance from her niece Amalie.  As Amalie films Agatha’s daily routines over a period of six years, it becomes clear that she’s the one who has a thing or two to learn: like how to survive without running water for a decade and still enjoy every day; how to harvest and transport a 15-lb watermelon (you kick it along with your rubber boot) so you can slice and feast on it, then preserve its heirloom seeds; and why living on your own may be tough but is as colorful and vivacious as any married life.  Atkins’ eye for beauty in her aunt’s physical movements, household objects, vibrant clothing, and agricultural universe fuse with her deep affection and luminous 16mm cinematography to present a captivating portrait of how artful a fiercely handmade, independent life can be. 

Presented with support from The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers

2025     86 MIN.     CANADA     ICARUS FILMS 

Reviews

“CHARMING... endearing, even inspiring... in searing colors on 16-millimeter film... a compendium of Bock’s green-thumb wisdom.”
– Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times

“Agatha Bock [is] an eclectic wonder in this artfully affectionate doc portrait... This veteran DIY dame, who celebrates her 90th birthday during the course of filming, proves a wizardly green thumb... Shot in wondrously luminous 16mm images by cinematographer Rhayne Vermette, AGATHA’S ALMANAC radiates with the pure joy that these rituals afford Bock daily. The loving colour palette accentuates the ripeness of Agatha’s bountiful and juicy fruits, from succulent red strawberries to eye-poppingly pink watermelons. The weathered character of Agatha’s lived-in abode provides aesthetically pleasing contrasts, while her vibrant wardrobe, curated in collaboration with Atkins, ensure that the titular aunt’s personality radiates in every frame.”
– Pat Mullen, POV Magazine

“With a cast of one and an inexpensive DIY cinematic style that feels imported from another generation, [AGATHA’S ALMANAC] posits that age is something to be treasured and contemplated, rather than torqued and twisted... Mostly, the film simply follows Agatha from dawn till dusk, [a] charming subject... Atkins, a multidisciplinary artist, proudly doesn’t obey the almost obligatory rhythms of documentary filmmaking. There are no talking heads, no manufactured narrative momentum. And, blessedly, it avoids the too-crisp digital sheen of contemporary docs, with the director enlisting cinematographer Rhayne Vermette to capture Agatha on 16mm film, the images so gritty in texture and saturated in colour that they feel unearthed from another era altogether.”
– Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)