A Documentary Film by Director Andrew Peat

CENTENARIAN

Coming soon

"We will all die. But… I want a choice in when and how."

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The Film

What do I need to do to live a long, healthy, vibrant life?

Centenarian is a film and a movement — to challenge the way society thinks about aging. Instead of frailty and dependence, it explores the real potential of living to 100 and beyond, brimming with vitality and purpose.

"The importance of your movie, I hope, is that people will go to the doctor and say: we saw this movie, and we want to do something about it."
— Dr. Nir Barzilai, to Director Andrew Peat

It travels over continents to interview top research scientists exploring longevity and gerontology, and meets people testing the limits of age and health — from the World Masters Games to longevity labs, from a 91-year-old sprinting 100 meters in just over 17 seconds to a 101-year-old setting a world rowing record.

1926 2026

Where they beganWhere they are

Elaine LaLanne, in an archival tone Elaine LaLanne in the film's modern color grade 1926 · Born 2026 · Still training

Elaine LaLanne — wife of the legendary Jack LaLanne — was born in March 1926. She turned 100 this year — and still works out every day. Our subjects are 80 to 104 in the film, born as far back as a century ago; the science measuring them belongs to today. The film lives on that line.

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The trailer

Centenarian trailer Official Trailer

"The youngest athlete in this film is 80. And then we work our way up."

Sprinters, rowers, boxers and lifters — competitors, not curiosities.

Ken Stone in a gym

Ken Stone

80

Sydney, Australia · Sprinter · Boxer · Swimmer

The youngest athlete in the film — the floor from which it works its way up.

Ken stretches religiously seven mornings a week and does something physical all seven days — sprints, rounds on the bag, laps in the pool — convinced that range of movement matters as much as anything else he can train.

Distance running is behind him now. "I used to love running distance. I can't do that anymore." So he cut it down to sprints — "to keep being able to sprint and move as quick as I can."

"While I can do it, I'll keep doing it."

Jacinto, seated outdoors in a red shirt

Jacinto Bonilla

85

Brooklyn, New York · CrossFit

He made his first weights out of soup cans filled with cement. He started CrossFit at 66.

Jacinto grew up in Spanish Harlem, where he and his friends built barbells out of big soup cans — cement poured in, a steel rod through the middle, left overnight to set. "We'd work out like that."

He came to CrossFit at 66, when, as he puts it, "there were hardly no 60-year-old or 70-year-old in CrossFit. Now there's a lot of them." His chalk clap became the film's signature image and its key art.

Elaine LaLanne lifting dumbbells in her home gym at 100

Elaine LaLanne

98

Wife of the legendary Jack LaLanne · Born March 1926

Jack LaLanne's widow and co-conspirator. 98 when we filmed her — she turned 100 this March, and still works out every day.

Elaine LaLanne helped build modern fitness culture alongside her husband, the legendary Jack LaLanne, appearing beside him on television for decades and making exercise look like something ordinary people did. Married to Jack from 1959 until his death in 2011, she has spent the years since as the movement's most persuasive living advocate.

Her secret, in her own words: "Having something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. Always have a project."

Her life is this film's timeline. Born in 1926, still training in 2026 — one hundred years of showing up.

Dottie Stewart on an indoor rowing machine

Dottie Stewart

102

World Indoor Rowing Champion

1,500 competitors, 300 rowing machines, and one centenarian they all wanted a photo with.

Dottie walked into an arena at BYU with 1,500 people from around the world and 300 rowing machines on the floor, and left a world champion — taking the 2,000-meter record in the 101-year-old category. "Something I had never dreamed would happen."

The trophy is a hammer — given, she was told, to the one who perseveres. She has five of them in her living room.

She played every sport there was: pitcher in baseball, forward in basketball, high jumper, volleyball, soccer. "And I climbed trees higher than the boys." She built two grandfather clocks from scratch, and a stained-glass window for her church when her son died.

Voices from the Film

What it actually sounds like

The hardest thing to find in a documentary is people an audience wants to spend ninety minutes with. This film is full of them — funny, unsentimental, and impossible to look away from.

"It was the publishers who wanted to title the book Aerobics. My father thought the word was too complicated — that people would never remember it."
Dr. Tyler Cooper on his father's 1968 book
"You get a hammer as a trophy, because it's given to the one who persevered. I have five of them sitting in my living room."
Dottie Stewart 102
"I say to my wife: I look in the mirror, I do not see 81. Her answer is very simple — get your eyes tested."
Bernard Kohn swims 180m daily 81
"People tell me I'm too old to go on a cruise. I think you're never too old to take on a new undertaking. And I think I can."
Irving 102
"I thought: that's stupid. Why don't they give iodine to the people so they don't get goiters in the first place? That's how I got into preventive medicine."
Dr. John Scharffenberg at age 12 100
"There's the real science, there's the gray area, and then there's the snake oil. And it's always been that way."
Dr. Matt Kaeberlein biogerontologist

The Human Story

Aging is not only a science story

Resilience is the thread running through every one of these lives. The film's most moving stories aren't about the years — they're about the losses, diagnoses and setbacks these people came through, and kept going anyway.

Acceptance

"When my daughter died at 21, I could either have a pity party for myself, or I could accept what is. A lot of people never accept."

Her daughter was killed in a car accident at 21. She describes acceptance as the hardest and most necessary thing — and the part most people never manage.

Defiance

"He said: you have a deadly monster, go home and get your life in order. I stood up and said — you're too negative for me."

Stage-four cancer in 1985. She walked out of that appointment and never went back to him. She is still here, still driving, and renewed her license until she's 107.

Connection

"Transportation, health care, nutrition — and most importantly, social connection."

What a senior center learned older adults actually need, and the standard it set itself: helping people live with independence, dignity and grace.

The Expert Voices

The scientists decoding what the athletes prove

Leading researchers and physicians in longevity, nutrition and the biology of aging — many with substantial built-in audiences of their own.

"Let's explore aging through the lens of science — and the experiences of people striding powerfully toward being a centenarian."

— From the film's opening narration

The Exercise

"The best drug we have"

Dr. Eric Verdin's flat verdict on combating aging — and his prediction that nothing will beat it for the next twenty years. A landmark 1989 study found aerobic fitness associated with 58% lower mortality.

The History

Once considered dangerous

In the 1950s medical schools taught that exercise wore the heart out. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, who coined the word "aerobics," was hauled before a medical board to defend treadmill testing as safe. The film shows how far the science moved.

The Drugs

Metformin & rapamycin

Dr. Nir Barzilai takes metformin daily and defends the evidence. Another researcher says flatly that as a clinician he has never seen it make patients healthier. The film lets them disagree.

The Food

Food, head to head with drugs

Dr. William Li swapped drug compounds for food extracts in the same screening system. Half the whole foods tested came back as potent — or more potent — than the pharmaceuticals. "My jaw dropped."

Centenarian teaser poster — a chalk clap against a red field

For Buyers & Programmers

Why this film sells

A crowd-pleaser with science credibility, aimed squarely at the audience already asking the question this film answers.

What the film delivers

Everybody agesThere is no niche here. Every person watching is either aging or loves someone who is — which makes this one of the few subjects with a genuinely universal audience, and a rare crossover between the wellness lane and the general one
It can change what people doThree-quarters of what sends Americans to a doctor is preventable, and the film's own experts say the next breakthrough isn't a molecule — it's getting people to act on what they already know. So the doctors make a direct, moving plea to get healthier, and Dr. Nir Barzilai tells Director Andrew Peat exactly what he hopes the film does: send viewers to their doctor saying "we saw this movie, and we want to do something about it." Audiences leave motivated to keep moving.
Access that can't be replicatedTwelve of the field's most recognized voices on camera — from the physician who coined the word "aerobics" to a Harvard evolutionary biologist to a nutrition professor who is himself a centenarian
Characters, not case studiesA 102-year-old world-champion rower with five trophies on her mantel. Jack LaLanne's widow, 98 on camera and 100 today. A woman who woke one morning unable to move, gave birth in the polio ward, and was told by her husband she'd never use a wheelchair again — so she didn't. A 102-year-old booking a cruise. An 81-year-old who swims 180m a day. People audiences fall for in the first minute
Global scopeFilmed across continents — the World Masters Games in Taiwan, a longevity program in Singapore, athletes in Sydney and Brooklyn, aging research at UCSD, a longevity clinic in Seattle
A question every viewer is already askingThe film answers what 40+ audiences are searching, reading and listening to about right now — and does it with evidence rather than hype
A movement, not just a titleBuilt to challenge how society thinks about aging, with a built-in audience among the experts' own followings

"Keep moving!"

— Elaine LaLanne

CENTENARIAN

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centenarianfilm@gmail.com

A documentary film by Director Andrew Peat · Coming soon

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