story identification - Searching for title of movie about rapid aging

People are born and grow up and die of old age in a matter of 5 days. The elders (5 days old) train children and send the most promising one on a trek across the dessert to a monolith that is the cause of the rapid aging to hopefully disable it.

I saw it on a reel to reel in the mid 90's. It looks like it was made in the late 70's or 80's. The cast was small. A few men played the elders seated in a row of chairs and the young boy who had to set out to save them who matures into a man and finally an elderly man.

I've been trying to figure out the title for years.

Answer

You MIGHT be thinking of Quest (1984), a movie based on Ray Bradbury's Frost and Fire.

In Frost and Fire, the life span is Eight days, and it's not the monolith (a space ship) causing the aging, but the radiation on the planet. The hero goes on a quest to reach the ship, discovering when he does that inside of it (and, presumably, off planet) the unnatural aging ceases.

Unfortunately, I haven't see Quest, and it's rather hard to find info on it, online.

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