Director: Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood Production: Seneca Village Pictures | Feature Film Alexa Mini LF, Arri DNA LF, Mamiya Sekor CResting at the heart of Waking Up in a Dream is Brooklyn’s legacy as the epicenter of co-existing diversity—cultural, spiritual, racial, economic, and personal—using this to build an interplay of artistic forms (still and moving images; black and white and color; soundscape and music; two-dimensional screens in three-dimensional space), woven through the musings of “Mother Nature.”
In an interview with two filmmakers during her final hours, she recalls the memories, thoughts, and questions of her life as she rests peacefully on her deathbed. Her contemplations sow together long-form conversations with the residents of Brooklyn about spiritual traditions meaning-making, culture, philosophy, death, wisdom, and love with beings ranging from children to elders. A Trinidadian barber, a boxing coach and his four sons, a Buddhist monk, an immigrant musician, an Imam, a brownstone superintendent. The wide-ranging interviews reveal how the normal human imagination parallels the art we revere and how our stories mirror larger histories, enduring myths, and identities.
A lucid portrait of humanity and its environments, Waking Up in a Dream invites you to meditate on the nature of time, storytelling, and the enduring power of conscious awareness.
