Educational Media Reviews Online

The filmmaker is clearly impressed with Sensei Fran Vall and crafts her life story as an adventurer, Foreign Service worker, martial arts instructor, skier, snow boarder and more. This film is an homage to a well-travelled life and an independent spirit. Fran is now 80, and still teaches judo as a 5th degree black belt. Fran is also a 4th degree Black belt in Naginatajutsu, (Japanese stick fighting) traditionally taught to female warriors who were Japanese nobles.

Fran travelled the world as a Foreign Service Officer and partook of the culture wherever she was stationed, learning Japanese dance and tea ceremony, appreciating home cooking in Afghanistan. She has many slides of her travels and those play a role in the documentary establishing her participation in and appreciation of cultures around the world. Overall, the title of the film is spot on. Her life of travel, inquiring into other cultures around the world and her teaching what she has learned is a positive example and a revelation of a life lived on one's own terms.

This short documentary would be a great film for almost any aged student and a must for colleges or universities that have a gerontology program, also a great choice for women's/gender studies programs.

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