Portraits and Dreams

Film Description

Portraits and Dreams revisits photographs created by Kentucky schoolchildren in the 1970s and the place where the photos were made. The film is about the students, their work as visionary photographers and the lives they have led since then, as well as the linkage of personal memory to the passage of time. Photographer Wendy Ewald's project with elementary schoolers in Eastern Kentucky photographing their own lives was a rare opportunity for kids in our region to uplift their own stories not as subjects, but as artists with agency and creative control. Their reunion 35 years later — now grown and with children of their own — raises questions about the lasting power of photography, arts education, and representation of our region by people who are of and from these mountains. A POV co-production with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, coming soon for purchase from the Appalshop store!

Screenings & Festivals

• American Film Institute
• P.O.V. Docs