Nine Good Teeth Directed by Alex Halpern, 2003

an upbeat portrait of old age, brushes with greatness and a feisty matriarch

A standout at film festivals across the country, the critically lauded and irreverently upbeat NINE GOOD TEETH has been distinguished as a “first-rate documentary” (indieWIRE) that is “as if John Waters had joined forces with Francis Ford Coppola to create a home movie” (BBC Storyville).

When Brooklyn-born, Sicilian-American matriarch “Nana” (Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavalier) was young, a gypsy prophesied that she’d only live to be 96 years old. With that ominous birthday looming near, director Alex Halpern set out to document the wondrously full life of his now 105-year-old grandmother, a fiercely independent spitfire with an endless supply of hilariously homespun wisdom. Dreamily unfolding through Nana’s stories, recollections, and interviews with her family – some loving, some rivalrous – NINE GOOD TEETH reveals many of the common truths hidden away in all our families, as well as the unexpected: late night visits from Beat poet Jack Kerouac, illicit love affairs, and even the occasional murder.

“You’ll never live as long as I have,” proclaims Nana, a truly outspoken and cinematic character who has witnessed the entire Twentieth Century with her own two eyes.