49 UP

East Coast Premiere

49 UP is the seventh installment in the widely celebrated series which began just over forty-two years ago with the seminal film 7 UP. In 1962, Michael Apted assisted then-director Paul Almond as he interviewed a group of economically, racially and culturally diverse seven-year-olds living in England. He asked about their lives and their hopes for the future, and caught up with them every seven years to repeat the process. Now, over four decades and six films later, Apted returns to his subjects once again (two have since dropped out of the project), finding them at age forty-nine.

Many of the subjects now have grandchildren nearly the same age that they were when the project first started. Some have seen marriages fall apart and others have experienced love anew. Some are still searching for meaning in their lives, while others have made peace with their destinies.

Devoted viewers will be happy to reunite with characters who feel like old friends-the good-natured cab driver, Tony; the soft-spoken boarding school boy, Bruce; and Neil, who at twenty-eight was seen wandering the highlands, homeless and verging on insanity. But the film is also a rare treat for those encountering the series for the first time, as it artfully weaves into the contemporary images footage from years past, as far back as the 1964 original, creating a potent dialogue between articulations of the past, realities of the present, and projections into the future.

The initial intention of the project was to make a polemic about class, and to show how the trajectory of a life is largely determined by economic background. And to a great extent the 7 UP series does provide evidence of this. But not entirely. It is also filled with surprises. But above all, the film is about the dreams of youth and the journey towards acceptance when those dreams come to pass.

-Sky Sitney

DIRECTOR BIO
Michael Apted was born in England in 1941 and began his career as a television director and investigative reporter. His first American film, COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER (1980), garnered seven Oscar® nominations including Best Picture, and 1988's GORILLAS IN THE MIST received five. Apted received a Grammy for the Sting concert film BRING ON THE NIGHT (1985), and in 1999, was the recipient of the International Documentary Associations' highest honor, the IDA Career Achievement Award. Apted is currently the President of the Directors Guild of America and serves on the Board of Trustees for the American Film Institute.

Print Source:
Jacqui Deakin
Granada Media
Quay Street
Manchester, M60 9EA UK
+44.161.832.7211

6/17 at 11:15 AM

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