PENNEBAKER CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD to Abigail E. Disney
Pennebaker Award sponsored by Artemis Rising, Regina K. Scully
THE AMERICAN DREAM AND OTHER FAIRY TALES
SAT, 12/5, 87 min
BAY STREET THEATER
Screening follows the Pennebaker Award presentation
Directors: Abigail E. Disney, Kathleen Hughes
Producers: Abigail E. Disney, Kathleen Hughes, Aideen Kane
Editor: David Cohen
Cinematographers: Jeff Hutchens, James Mills
In this personal essay, documentary filmmaker and philanthropist Abigail E. Disney grapples with America’s profound inequality crisis. In 2018, after Abigail encounters workers at the company that bears her last name struggling to put food on the table, she questions whether she can use her famous name to pressure the company and other American corporations to treat low-wage workers more humanely.
Filmed over a two-year period, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales weaves together Abigail’s family story along with the history of modern American capitalism from the middle of the last century, when wealth was shared more equitably, to today, when CEOs earn upwards of 800 times more than their average employees. Fairy tales occur in the movies, but in reality they are harder to come by. As the film points out, even Cinderella might be sleeping in her car.