Summer 2005

Seavey Looks Down the Road at an Aging America

GW Professor’s Latest Documentary Probes “What Next?” for Baby Boomers

By Jamie L. Freedman

Seventy seven million Baby Boomers are now nearing retirement age, setting into motion a huge demographic transformation in the United States. “What next?” asks Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Nina Gilden Seavey, MA ’86, in her new documentary The Open Road: America Looks at Aging, premiering this July on American public television.

“Baby Boomers are going to redefine the concept of retirement,” states Seavey, founder and director of the Documentary Center at The George Washington University. “In our minds, we’re still the revolutionaries who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s — refusing to conform to conventions or to do something just because it’s always been done that way. Sun City and shuffleboard — or ‘killing time before it kills you’ — is not us and never will be.”

The one-hour film explores the myriad opportunities, as well as the obstacles, accompanying longevity. “The creative test for me was to see if I could take a public affairs subject and give it an emotional soul,” says Seavey, who produced, directed, and wrote the film. She traveled throughout the United States, talking to hundreds of people, before selecting the film’s 13 featured characters whose universal stories are emblematic of the “third phase” of life. The result is a compelling mix of retirees reinventing themselves through meaningful volunteer work and new careers, seniors eager to experience their life’s first taste of freedom by hitting the open road in their RVs, and individuals riddled by fear as they realize they haven’t prepared as well for retirement as they’d thought. The Open Road profiles their varying approaches to aging and probes the personal and societal impact of the Boomers’ impending retirement.

“Retirement, or aging, is not a linear process — it’s a trajectory that can take many routes and twists and turns along the way,” says Seavey. “The Open Road helps viewers begin to define that trajectory. I see this film as a way to shake up my generation’s view of aging and influence how we approach it.”

An integral part of the film is insightful commentary by four nationally recognized experts on healthy aging, including Gene Cohen, founder and director of GW’s Center on Aging, Health, and Humanities. Referring to the experts as the “anchors of the film,” Seavey states, “All four emphasize the importance of dealing with the obstacles of aging, including the really difficult ones, while taking advantage of the opportunities.”

Seavey says that she hopes the film is a “wake up call” for Boomers and for policy-makers, most of whom she believes “haven’t got a clue” about what this massive demographic shift means both for individuals and for America as a whole. “I like to say that it’s not a film, it’s a movement,” she states, noting that the film’s July release will be accompanied by extensive community outreach efforts throughout the United States. Town meetings are currently scheduled in a dozen cities — from Portland, OR, to Jacksonville, FL, and the concept is spreading like wildfire. “The forums will use the film as a catalyst to inspire participating communities to begin talking about and planning for the impending retirement of one in four Americans,” says Seavey. In addition, a screening hosted by the Majority and Minority Chairs of the Special Senate Committee on Aging is scheduled on Capitol Hill for the end of June. “I hope that the film and this extensive grassroots and national outreach will spark conversations about what can be done to take advantage of the tremendous wealth of Baby Boomer experience and energy. Business, nonprofits, government — across the board — will have to change how they function to accommodate the healthiest, wealthiest, best educated, and most active generation of older Americans in history.”

Like all of Seavey’s films, The Open Road is a production of the Documentary Center at GW, which will soon celebrate its 15th anniversary. As the center’s director, Seavey has mentored and graduated more than 250 aspiring documentary filmmakers, who come from around the world to study in her prestigious, intensive, six-month certificate program. Seavey’s many professional credits include an Emmy Award for her 1998 documentary A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America, as well as an Emmy nomination for Best Director for her 2003 film The Ballad of Bering Strait, which followed seven Russian teenagers on their journey to the United States to become country music stars. She also earned acclaim producing and co-directing The Battle of the Alamo for the Discovery Channel — the first film ever shot within the walls of the Texas shrine. Her first full-length dramatic feature film, Evening Light, is currently in casting.

“The reason that we are filmmakers is because we care passionately,” says Seavey. “We believe our work is going to be seen by thousands, maybe millions, of people and that we can make a difference. My greatest wish is that The Open Road will encourage Boomers to think and talk about how they can creatively shape the “third phase” of their lives in a way that satisfies individual as well as critical social needs. It’s truly an open road.”

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu