The starting point for this unusual film is an American film production by Bertolt Brecht, inspired by an article in Life magazine. Shortly after arriving in the United States in 1941, the famous writer and playwright was fascinated by a report on the daily lives of a family of ‘model’ farmers who had been invited to live in a ‘model’ home open to the public 12 hours a day. Using a playful hybrid form combining recordings of Brecht’s testimony before the infamous McCarthy Commission, re- enactments using puppets and drawings, period photographs and home movies. Zoe Beloff exposes a little-known period in Brecht’s career and brilliantly explodes the myth of an American way of life. The film moves from the 1940’s up to the recent real estate bubble in 2008.
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