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Arts & Entertainment

'Beyond Greenaway, The Legacy' Screening at Ajoya

The film, written and directed by Mercer Island resident Sue Gilbert, will be shown free this weekend on Mercer Island

With news dominated by headlines of "Occupy Wall Street", "" and "we are the 99 percent", arts boosters will present the free screening of a film this weekend that reflects on the ultra-wealthy, so-called "One Percent".

Sponsored by the , "Beyond Greenaway, The Legacy" will be shown at the on Mercer Island on Friday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m.

The film is a documentary film about an extremely wealthy family’s children growing up on their own private Island off of Long Island Sound in Connecticut. Former Mercer Island resident Sue Gilbert was one of those children.

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"Beyond Greenaway" is actually the sequel to an award-winning documentary, “Greenaway” that Gilbert wrote and directed in 1981 that debuted on PBS and at major film festivals in 1982. 

“Greenaway told the story of my parents and their enormous wealth, their perspective on their lifestyle and their relationship to the outside world,” said Gilbert. “They cover a diverse range of subjects, the meaning of wealth, the implications of a vanishing servant class, designing Olympic class sailboats, LSD therapy, and the hidden agenda behind politics. On a deeper level, they argue for the preservation of old values: the beauty of traditions, the safety of marriage, and the critical importance of religion as the basis for morals and ethics.”

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The film becomes particularly poignant towards the end as Gilbert’s parents reveal their paranoia of the political system of the US and their sense of being an endangered species.

“People wanted to know (after viewing Greenaway) coming from that background why did I seem so normal, and were my brothers and sisters normal like me?” said Gilbert. “They could feel a cultural shift between my parents and me, and I was so struck by that question that I woke up two weeks later knowing that I needed to do a sequel about myself and my (5) siblings.”

Gilbert and her fellow producers describe the film as unveiling a realistic side of American wealth largely hidden from view. According to the film's promotional materials,

"By watching Gilbert’s family wrestle with money issues like deserving, envy, and hiding, one sees that wealth neither defines a person nor does it preclude struggle. This film focuses on universal themes: parent-child conflicts, political differences, identity struggles, and - overriding all - a pure and joyful love of family.”

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