In an exclusive trailer for the documentary “History of Memory,” filmmakers Sarah Klein and Tom Mason tell four stories about how photographs drastically and forever altered the lives of the people in them halfway across the globe.
“If your family has been in this country a long time, there’s some secrets in your closet,” one woman says in the trailer. “My mother brought out this photo album, and I realized the depth of my mother’s story as passing as a white woman.”
“History of Memory” is a four-chapter film series, one of which is “A Secret Album.” In it, the woman mentioned above discovers her true self and surprising heritage after she uncovers a hidden family photo album.
There’s also the story of an adopted son who discovers newborn photos he never knew existed; a story of a man who flew to India for an arranged marriage based solely on the photograph of his bride to be; and another about a Chinese man whose photo was being shown all across the Western world after a French archivist saved it from destruction.
Klein and Mason together created Redglass Pictures in 2008 and have since co-directed and produced a number of projects, including the New York Times short “Miracle on 22nd Street” –which was recently optioned by Tina Fey and Universal Pictures — a series of shorts for the Ken Burns PBS project “The Emperor of Maladies,” and a four-part video installation on Vietnam for the New York Historical Society.
The duo has interviewed the Obamas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Kerry, Michael Chabon and JJ Abrams, to name a few. Klein’s early credits include the HBO documentary “Hard as Nails” and the Arte film “The Good Mother.”
“History of Memory” will make its premiere as part of a screening with Tribeca X, on Thursday, April 25 at Regal Cinemas Battery Party 11 and then as part of the festival on May 3 as presented by The Garage by HP.
Watch the exclusive trailer above.