Directed, produced and written by Jillian Schlesinger
Executive produced by Rebecca Ritchie Brower (Our Nixon), Louis Venezia (Our Nixon), Gill Holland (Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me) and Dominic Cicere (Color Me Obsessed)
Edited and co-written by Penelope Falk (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work)
Featuring Laura Dekker
Quick take: The SXSW and CIFF Audience Award winner about Laura Dekker, who sailed around the world at age 14. It’s a first-person doc that ultimately isn’t really a first-person doc, which is fine and at least more upfront than ghostwritten memoirs and autobiographies that aren’t credited as such. Wonder why Dekker isn’t co-director or something like that, though.
Release date: TBD (Sneak Preview of the film at Lincoln Center in NYC on 11/15)
Synopsis, via the film’s Facebook page:
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out — camera in hand — on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked a global storm of media scrutiny, Laura now finds herself far from land, family and unwanted attention, exploring the world in search of freedom, adventure, and distant dreams of her early youth at sea. Jillian Schlesinger’s debut feature amplifies Laura’s brave, defiant voice through a mix of Laura’s own video and voice recordings at sea and intimate vérité footage from locations including the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia, Australia, and South Africa.
