Septuagenarian student becomes subject of award-winning doc

Niki Lazarou was born on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos in 1944 and was sent to South Africa by her family at the age of 22 to seek a better life. After her first husband died when he was 49, she was left raising two children alone. In 1995, she returned to Lesvos with her second husband, Tom, and in 2008 enrolled at the local Second Chance School, which paved the way for her to start studying social anthropology and history at the University of the Aegean in 2014.

The 72-year-old's life sounds like a film and now it is one, too, winning the first prize at the 4th AegeanDocs international documentary festival. "I look a bit old in the film, but that's OK; I am old," she says.

The documentary, "Niki," was created by Alexandros Stergiou, Ioulia Sarantou and Despina Veri, three night-school students who knew nothing about making a film.

"We got together with...