A Dream Is What You Wake Up From (1978)

Directed by

Larry Bullard, Carolyn Y. Johnson

Genre

documentary

Country

United States

Runtime

50 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This film shows the lives of two black families in the United States during the 1970s. One family lives in poverty in Harlem and the other is better off in the New Jersey suburbs. It mixes documentary and acted scenes to explore differences in race, gender, and money.

contemplativeunsettlingcomparativeunclearobservationalsocially-awarethoughtful

What happens

A Dream Is What You Wake Up From is a 1978 American film that combines documentary and narrative techniques to tell the stories of two black families in the United States. The film focuses on the intersection of race, gender, and wealth, comparing and contrasting the lives of a poor Harlem family and a more affluent family in the New Jersey suburbs. The blending of documentary and narrative filmmaking makes it deliberately "unclear" which scenes involve "professional" versus "non-professional" actors (as they are called in the film's credits). The film merely opens with a title card that reads "Segments of this film are dramatized," and only certain scenes—such as a Reconstruction era dramatization—are obviously fictional. This style is said to be inspired by Cuban director Sara Gómez, whom the film is dedicated to along with Mozambican activist Josina Machel. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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