Afternoons
Lola, Carol, Lenore and Sandy are four women from Applewood Independent Living with whom I spent the final months of my senior year, Super-8 camera in hand. These women lead democracy activist groups, participate in writing clubs, attend seminars, and teach classes-- perhaps involved in more extracurriculars than most college students. Moving between the four women, Afternoons reframes the way we think about aging, as a process marked by loss, but also by gain. The film pulses with the vibrancy of life left to live and the power of intergenerational encounters, moments spent between young and old, those which we can only hope to capture on camera.
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Maeve Summer McNamaraDirector
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Lola LadinKey Cast
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Sandra Albertson-SheaKey Cast
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Lenore MillerKey Cast
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Carol CollinsKey Cast
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Project Type:Documentary, Short, Student
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Runtime:15 minutes 10 seconds
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Completion Date:May 1, 2019
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Production Budget:500 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Shooting Format:Digital, Super-8mm
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:Yes
Maeve McNamara is a recent graduate of Amherst College from Boston, Massachusetts. At Amherst, Maeve was committed to interdisciplinary learning, pursuing a double major in Biology and Film and Media Studies, and completing a senior thesis in film centered on intergenerational feminism and contemporary women's film. A lover of all things sports, she was a four year-member and captain of the Amherst Women's Soccer and Basketball teams. Her 2019 film, Tests of Time, which works through questions of medicine, memory, and coming of age, screened at the 5 College Student Film Festival and the Trinity Film Festival in Hartford Connecticut. Maeve's interest in aging extends into her professional pursuits, as she currently works as a research fellow in a genetics and aging lab at Harvard Medical School. In her free time she writes, watches 70s films and spends time with family by the ocean.
Afternoons captures a twenty-one year old woman eager to learn from the wise minds, blurred memories and untiring spirits of four aging women in Western Massachusetts. I can still feel the whir of the Super-8 camera as Lenore and I walked through the Smith College Botanical Garden, hear the cackle of Carol and her friends giggling over something silly at Sunday brunch, see Lola's smile recalling, for the second time, her memories of social work in Rochester, and taste the coffee cake Sandy sent me home with after our first day of interviewing. I made this film at Amherst College as part of my undergraduate senior thesis in film and media studies, titled "To Measure Our Years in Love: Coming of Age in Contemporary Women's Film," an exploration of coming of age narratives and intergenerational feminism in contemporary women's film. I interviewed and adventured around the Pioneer Valley with Carol, Lenore, Lola and Sandy, moving between digital and Super-8mm film, inspired by the work of Canadian filmmaker, Sarah Polley. I think of Afternoons as a form of practice of intergenerational feminism. I’ll cherish these women always, knowing full-heartedly that they changed my life far more than I might have changed theirs.