Golden Era

The documentary "Golden Era"
describes the history and development of the Austrian bodybuilding and fitness movement. In a touching way, the film confronts questions of transience using the example of Austrian fitness legends.
The film dares to tackle unusual topics and is touching due to the unusual life stories of its actors. Beyond the journey through time, the film shares with its viewers the confidence in life. It is astonishing when an 80-year-old athlete can still do more than 20 pull-ups a day and sees himself on the sidelines of life, neither professionally nor privately. Likewise, the performances of the other actors are more than impressive.
Each of the former athletes is accompanied by the awareness of achieving and celebrating a borrowed physical state of emergency, which, however, also goes hand in hand with saying goodbye to it. The physical development achieved is like a sandcastle which one day is carried away by the tides from the sea.
The life of an athlete and his participation in competitions is comparable to the "mono no aware" of the Japanese cherry blossom festival Hanami. Blossoming and fading are closely linked in time, in the prime of life the farewell to this is already laid out.
The journey through time starts in Tyrol and leads via Hallein to Graz to the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose seventy-fifth birthday was celebrated there at the end of July 2022.
In the film, viewers meet eyewitnesses who have shaped Austria's fitness and bodybuilding history since its inception. The lifestyle of the Austrian fitness legends is intended to motivate the film audience to face the daily overcoming of various difficulties with humor and a wink.