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| 51 Birch Street |
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A film by Doug Block
Produced by Copacetic Pictures
Produced with HBO/Cinemax Documentary Films/ZDF/Arte/Channel4, More4/CBC/SVT/YES DBS
USA | 2005 | 88'
www.51birchstreet.com |
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51 BIRCH STREET is a riveting personal documentary that explores a universal human question -- how much about your parents do you really want to know?
Filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe his parent's 54-year marriage was a good one. So he isn't prepared when, just a few months after his mother's unexpected death, his father phones to announce that he's moving to Florida to live with his secretary from 40 years before, Kitty. Always close to his mother and equally distant from his dad, he's stunned and suspicious.
When his father and Kitty marry and sell the long-time family home, Doug returns to suburban Long Island for one last visit and discovers 3 boxes filled with his mom's diaries going back 35 years. Realizing that he has only a few short weeks before his dad will be gone, he grabs his camera, determined to investigate the mystery of his parents' marriage.
Through increasingly candid conversations with family members and stunning diary revelations, he comes to terms with two parents who are far more complex and troubled than he ever imagined.
Both funny and heartbreaking, 51 BIRCH STREET is the first person account of Doug's unpredictable journey through a whirlwind of dramatic life-changing events: the death of his mother, the uncovering of decades of family secrets, and the ensuing reconciliation with his 83-year-old father. What begins as Doug's own intimate, autobiographical story, soon evolves into a broader meditation on the universal themes of love, marriage, fidelity and the mystery of family.
51 BIRCH STREET weaves together hundreds of faded snapshots, 8mm home movies and two decades of interviews and verité footage. The result is a timeless tale of what can happen when our most fundamental assumptions about family are suddenly called into question.
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