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Black and White image of a woman pointing a film camera towards the viewer, she adjsuts the focus.

A Photographic Memory

  Rachel Elizabeth Seed

  United States     87 minutes

Synopsis

Through her decade-long quest to piece together fragments of her mother’s life, filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed offers a moving and intimate portrait of Sheila Turner-Seed, who died a few months after Rachel was born. In her lifetime, Sheila shirked societal expectations by exploring the world as a journalist and photographer. Through a wealth of pictures, home movies, television interviews, and newly discovered audio recordings of conversations with iconic photographers such as Henri-Cartier Bresson and Gordon Parks, Seed pays homage to the thrilling life and impressive work of her mother as an artist, best known for her groundbreaking series “Images of Man.”

With inventive visual compositions that play with both cinematic and photographic forms, a hint of humor, and a nod to her mother’s Chicago ties, Seed explores questions of legacy, memory, feminism, and modern photography while attempting to close the gap between herself and the mother she never knew.

 English 

Screenings & Events

Screening

Wed, Oct 23 @ 2:30pm CDT

at Gene Siskel Film Center, screen 1

Scheduled to Attend:
Director Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Accessibility options for this screening:
  • Assistive Listening Devices available
Learn more about accessibility options...

Screening

Thu, Oct 24 @ 8:30pm CDT

at Gene Siskel Film Center, screen 1

Scheduled to Attend:
Director Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Accessibility options for this screening:
  • Assistive Listening Devices available
Learn more about accessibility options...

Media

Film Credits

  •   Rachel Elizabeth Seed, Sigrid Dyekjær, Beth Levison, Matt Perniciaro, Michael Sherman, Danielle Varga
  •   Rachel Elizabeth Seed
  •   Christopher Stoudt, Eileen Meyer, Tyler Hubby, Will Garafolo
  •   Joseph Michael Lopez, Rachel Elizabeth Seed
  •   Mary Lattimore
  •   Kirsten Johnson, Maida Lynn, Hinda Gilbert, Robina Riccitiello
  •   https://rachelseed.com/#/apm/

Sponsors

Documentary Program Partner

Logo: WTTW (2019)

Documentary Program Patron

Cynthia Stone Raskin