Portrait of Kaye
Due to Kaye's lifelong agoraphobia, she has spent the majority of her life confined to the confines of the house she shared with her parents. She seeks solace in the visages and lives of bygone movie stars, and she creates a kaleidoscopic collage on the walls of her home by affixing their photographs alongside those of her departed family members. This mashes up her own history with Hollywood fantasy in a way that is both unique and fascinating. Portrait of Kaye is a bittersweet portrait of a woman who is forming her own unique identity while navigating the conflicting influences of her mother's bawdy humor and her father's anxieties. The story is told first-hand via freewheeling monologues, and it is a portrait of a woman who is forming her own unique identity. She is now 74 years old and was just widowed; her fascination with a younger neighbor provides her the opportunity to pursue personal and sexual liberties that she has always kept tucked away. Ben Reed, a former next-door neighbor who is now a filmmaker of music videos, has assembled an original and moving meditation on the meaning of freedom, film, and family. The film was shot over the course of two years.