63 Up

January 7, 2020 · Central Cinema · 7:00 p.m.

“Visionary. The noblest project in cinema history.” — Roger Ebert

7 Up was broadcast in 1964 as a one-off World in Action special inspired by founding editor Tim Hewat’s passionate interest in the Jesuit saying, “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” and his anger at what he saw as the rigidity of social class in England. 7 Up asked a group of children about their hopes and dreams for the future. As members of the generation who would be running the country by the year 2000, what did they think they would become?

The result was ground-breaking, and the follow-up films every seven years have won an array of awards. Led by director Michael Apted throughout the decades, the series has documented the group as they became adults and entered middle-age, dealing with all of life’s joys and disappointments. Now, as the group reaches retirement age, Apted is again asking whether or not our adult lives are pre-determined by our earliest influences and the social class in which we are raised–an issue as relevant to our society now as when the series first appeared.

About the Filmmaker

Since the 1960s, Michael Apted has helmed an extensive list of feature films and documentaries. His feature films include Gorillas in the Mist, Coalminer’s Daughter, Gorky Park, Thunderheart, Nell, The World is Not Enough, Enigma, Enough, Amazing Grace, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Chasing Mavericks. His most recent film, Unlocked, a spy thriller starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Douglas, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, and Toni Collette, was released in 2017.