Coming to HBO for its cable premiere this Father’s Day (appropriately enough), Sunday, June 19: THE KIDS GROW UP
Doug Block premiered this exceptional look at father/daughter dynamics and the impending empty nest at IDFA in 2009. Since then, it screened at more than a dozen festivals, including Full Frame, Hot Docs, Dokufest, and Silverdocs, before embarking on a successful limited theatrical release.
Block continues to mine the rich terrain of family relationships that was central to his previous film, 51 BIRCH STREET. While that film focused on his own parents and just how much (or how little) he understood their relationship, THE KIDS GROW UP extends that analysis to Block’s own relationship with his daughter Lucy, whose life he has filmed extensively over the past 18 years. Documenting the last year Lucy spends at home before embarking for college on the other side of the country, Block and his wife struggle with the idea that their home won’t have children in it for the first time since they got married, and, frankly, that Lucy is becoming an adult. Revisiting decades worth of footage featuring Lucy from a toddler through to the present, Block constructs a truly remarkable and unique portrait of not only his daughter, but of fatherhood, aging, and the complex inner workings of family. Like the best of personal documentaries, THE KIDS GROW UP is able to move beyond the individual, specific story of the Blocks and tap into something universal that will resonate with all viewers on a fundamental level.
what (not) to doc 