SKY BERGMAN; Talks about her LIVES WELL LIVED, Award winning Documentary.
She told me that she grew up in South Florida and she had a great childhood, very family orientated with her grandparents, a good intergenerational mixture. She went to the university of South Florida in Tampa and studied business but discovered photography when she took a class for fun. She realised straight away that that was something that she wanted to pursue instead of business.
Eventually she went to California to go to grad school. She said that she loved the West Coast so much she stayed there and has spent the last 26 years teaching photography.
She worked as a photographer for many years doing many travel projects and book covers.
The idea for her first film came about when her 96 year old Grandma visited from Florida. She was an incredible cook and that was her way of showing her love and the way she connected with family, spending hours in the kitchen together. Her Grandmother never wrote a receipt down, this prompted Sky to realise that if she wanted to know the receipts for the future, she needed to film her Grandmother. So the idea of the film emerged. Sky recalled that around that time she and her own mother took her grandmother back to Italy to meet family at the grand old age of one hundred.
She said she was always curious about people's stories especially when her Italian family members shared long dinners exchanging stories. She would record them chatting and eventually she asked her Grandmother, who started working out in the gym at 80 and was still exercising in the gym at 100, if she would agree to being filmed working out for her documentary and she said her grandmother was "game for it".
At the same time as filming she got many words of wisdom from her Grandma like "be kind" and "live life to the limits."
Sky says when she was young there were not many older role models and not much in the media about positive ageing. After filming her grandmother she was inspired to find other role models that she could look up to as she aged. She emailed friends with the video of her grandma working out at 100years old and she was inundated by nominations of positive ageing stories from all over the country. She then spent four years interviewing 40 people who she says "all had amazing stories to tell".
I asked her if she thought there was a problem of ageing and ageism in America. She said that she was not aware of it growing up, maybe because she was living with her grandparents but as she aged she has noticed shift in attitudes, especially after passing the age of 50yrs, she has noticed ageism creeping in.
Sky's said that when she made the film 'LIVES WELL LIVED' her goal was to collect the shared wisdom of 75 year olds and older. She has since been involved in projects that use the film to stimulate discussions with younger people to help many intergenerational initiatives to connect the generations.
The film has been received very well and she is really happy that her grandmother got to see it before she died.
Sky currently has two short films in film festivals and is working on other projects.
If you missed my interview with Sky Bergman you can catch it on my IGTV feed @shuvonshuvoff
YOU CAN CONTACT SKY
EMAIL; lives.well.lived@gmail.com
WEBSITE:lives-well-lived.com
TRAILER:VIMEO.COM?132338363
FACEBOOK: liveswelllived
TWITTER:liveswelllived
INSTAGRAM: liveswelllived
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