Nine To Ninety

Nine To Ninety is one of several documentaries I have directed that center on family dynamics. My first film was about my own family arguing about religion, and I discovered that my story-telling passion lies in intimate character-based explorations of a theme. More recently I was able to develop my approach with Xmas Without China (SXSW, PBS, Al Jazeera), about two families wrestling with consumerism. "A surprising, sweet, funny documentary that provokes without sermons," (James V. Grimaldi, The Wall Street Journal) Xmas Without China gave me an opportunity to play with humor, winning us a “Best Comedy” award at the 2013 Friar’s Club Film Festival. Nine To Ninety, about a family dealing with aging, shares the intimacy of these films, and is formally my purest exploration of cinema vérité storytelling so far, eschewing expert testimony or archival footage in favor of finding the film completely in the footage we filmed with the family as their story unfolded.

Producer Juli Vizza came to me with the idea for the film about her own family and when we began to film them, I quickly realized that the heart of the story for me is Juli’s grandparents Phyllis and Joe Sabatini. Their aging affects their whole family and I was intrigued by the dynamics of this closely-knit Italian-American clan, but it was Phyllis who emerged as the main character. Phyllis is charming, plainspoken and a firecracker, and I was struck by how she was so actively engaged in trying to make very difficult decisions about her life, a life so entwined with that of her husband Joe and the lives of their younger family members. She faces the deepest questions of love, responsibility, burden, loss and grace in her own way, and I sought, with my team, to capture something of her heroic journey. Her surprising decision to part with her husband of 62 years is wrenching, and deeply unsettling for some viewers, and it is my hope that this challenges us to action – to start the converations in our own families that need to be had about end of life care, death and caretaking; to envision the society we want for our aging loved ones, our caregivers, our families; and to demand and contribute to a sea change of policies, resources and support to enable all of us to age with dignity.

I am indebted to Juli and her family for letting us be with them with a camera at such a difficult time, and to cinematographer/co-producer Michael Dwyer for his incredible eye, his passion and discernment. Filming with Michael and sound mixer Jesse Dwyer, my brothers, is a particular joy for me, and is instrumental in allowing the intimacy with which we are able to film another family. Love also to brilliant editor Kate Amend and composer John Kirby for bringing the film alive with us in post-production.

50 million Americans live in multigenerational households – 40% more than in1990. With life expectancies increasing, our aging population is growing to historic rates at the same time that most families in the US are losing ground economically. I hope our film brings into focus what this means for real people like Phyllis Sabatini and her family – and that we can follow her courageous lead when she exclaims, “We’ve got to talk about it!”