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Hurtling down the tracks of a New York City subway train line with the Twin Towers on the horizon, the camera suddenly plunges into the Hudson River. This is the startling opening to Dream City, the little-known experimental documentary that the US filmmaker and photographer Steven Siegel made in 1986. Frenetic camerawork and kinetic editing catapult us from scene to scene across the city as teenagers weigh in on topics ranging from the psychology of graffiti to income inequality and street harassment. The result – an absorbing confluence of time, place and visual style – is a distinctly New York jaunt that brings to mind the words of the poet Dylan Thomas: ‘I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they’ve ever questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn’t know, because I won’t ever dare ask that question.’
Director: Steven Siegel
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War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
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Food and drink
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner
14 minutes
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Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
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Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress
8 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
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Art
The sprawling mural that depicts an unflinching people’s history of Los Angeles
7 minutes