A film worth seeing, and celebrating!

Filmmaker Evan Briggs has noticed how America's seniors are locked away out of sight after a certain age. "Why are we OK with that?" she asked. Then she learned there was a pre-school in a retirement home in West Seattle, Washington. During the 2012-13 school year, she filmed three days a week at the intergenerational learning center for children ages 6 weeks to 6 years inside Providence Mt. St. Vincent, a retirement home for 400 adults. Her feature film, "Present Perfect," captures how it feels to grow up, and grow old, in America.

                                                                                                                                Evan Briggs
Briggs observes that the place where children and seniors overlap in always the present. "They've arrived at that place from either having an abundance of life experience or no life experience," she says. The elderly get a renewed sense of self-worth, and the children get unconditional love from doting residents, who do a "complete transformation" in the presence of children. "Sometimes they seemed half-alive," said Briggs, "but as soon as the kids walk in for art or music, the residents come alive." If you can spare four minutes, please watch the trailer for "Present Perfect," linked here. You'll never forget it.  https://vimeo.com/129831958