A Dream is What You Wake Up From

director: Carolyn Johnson, Larry Bullard

original title: A Dream is What You Wake Up From

year: 1978

running time: 50 min.

synopsis

Describing the daily lives of three Black American families in the late 1970s, the film A Dream is What You Wake Up From, which we would now refer to as a docudrama, combines documentary footage with staged scenes. It develops on a wide range of historical, political, and social contexts that determine the relational dynamics inside and outside basic social units, all in confrontation with a world determined by the values, stereotypes, and ideals of a white majority. It is not only race that defines the protagonists of the film, but also the social roles and economic standards that they adopt.

biography

Carolyn Y. Johnson and Larry Bullard are Black America filmmakers who, along with a group of other prominent minority figures in the early 1970s, made a significant contribution to the ethnic diversification of Third World Newsreel, which focuses on social inequalities and related phenomena.