35 and Single - Paula Schargorodsky (New York Times Op-Docs)

Over the past 10 years, I’ve been compulsively filming everyone and everything for no particular reason. All my love stories and breakups have been recorded and systematically kept.

As I continued to change boyfriends and hometowns every two years or so, I filmed my friends with their boyfriends, then husbands, then pregnant bellies, until they were surrounded by children. When my last single friend from school married, I fell asleep the evening of the wedding and didn’t show up.

I’m 35, Argentine, Jewish and single.

And these four categories don’t seem to go smoothly together. So I decided to make a film about the questions I have struggled to answer. Can social mandates be disregarded, or is my extended youth finally coming to its end?

After I finished filming, I met someone. He is imperfect, and I love him. This time I realize I can live with unanswered questions, and that’s fine.


Paula Schargorodsky is a filmmaker who lives in Buenos Aires. She is currently expanding the story in this Op-Doc video into a feature-length documentary, “Girl Behind the Camera,” and an online interactive project, “Get Over It.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/35-and-single.html?smid=pl-share