Award winning director Michael Apted (56Up, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Amazing Grace) is campaigning on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo (http://igg.me/at/MIA3) to jumpstart the third installment of his Married in America film series.
Married in America is a longitudinal documentary film series about marriage in the 21st century. Chronicling the journeys of nine diverse couples wed in 2001, this landmark series explores marriage with the kind of honesty and intimacy that will be familiar to fans of Apted’s widely acclaimed 7 Up films. Along the way it provides viewers with real-life insights they can apply to their marriages and relationships.
Echoing the enthusiasm of many reviewers, the lead critic of the LA Times wrote, “It’s so good, you’ll throw rice…Apted is as good a story-teller here as in the best of his feature films, …Especially striking are the film’s intersecting cultures and religious faiths…In fact, how will all these couples cope with the challenges they surely will face?”
“I made the films because I’m fascinated by relationships and what makes them work,” says Apted. “I also wanted to look at how marriage is changing in the early 21st century [with] more women becoming the major breadwinners, both spouses working full-time, bi-racial and interfaith marriages increasing, and same-sex marriages becoming more accepted.”
While cable networks supported the first two films, crowdfunding is necessary to help launch the third. “The Up films worked because one company stood by them,” notes Apted, “but it's much harder today in the TV business because agendas keep changing.”
Speaking of crowdfunding, Apted says, “I’m very taken with it. People can contribute to what they want to see and become part of it. For an audience that’s an empowering experience.”
The first Married in America film, shot in 2001, captures the candid moments as the soon-to-be-married couples share how they met and their dreams for the future. Apted revisited the couples in 2006 to find out how they have coped with the twists and turns of early-married life. Married in America 3, which Apted hopes to resume filming early 2015, will reveal many unexpected changes. Apted says, “My goal is to follow the couples for at least 20 years, something no one has done before in documentary filmmaking.”
Married in America is Apted’s only other longitudinal project, and he feels it’s even more important than the UP films because it’s given him the opportunity to explore relationships. In his Indiegogo pitch for the series he says, “A loving relationship is the most important thing in almost everyone's life…and the films we're making really get at the courage and honesty it takes to make a marriage work and then if it doesn't, to learn from what went wrong.”
No other film series exists that so deeply documents the journey of marriage. Marriage expert and co-director of The Relationship Institute at UCLA, Dr. Thomas Bradbury notes, “Married in America is indispensable in my teaching; no other resource comes close to conveying the diverse forms that marriages can take or the complex forces that govern their course.”
Indiegogo Campaign Link: http://igg.me/at/MIA3