Episode 2 of POV Shorts’ fourth season airs tonight on PBS (check local listings) in addition to its streaming debut on POV.org. Dreaming Life contains two films about finding self-acceptance and joy -- Another Hayride and the animated film To The Future, With Love.
Another Hayride is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Matt Wolf who continues his engagement with queer history in this short film. Following self-help guru Louise Hay, Wolf’s film tells the story of her ‘Hayrides,’ healing spaces for gay men during the height of the AIDS pandemic in the early 1980s. Drawing hundreds of gay men confronting a deadly pandemic, Louise promised that self-love would help them overcome AIDS.
To The Future, With Love is the latest short film from Emmy-award winning director and producer Shaleece Haas who produced The Genius of Marian, a POV feature film from 2014. Her films, marked by a balance of poignancy and humor, invite audiences deep into the interior worlds of their protagonists. In this film, it is 9-year-old Hunter “Pixel” Jimenez, a nonbinary trans boy caught between the expectations of his Guatemalan immigrant family and his dreams of living happily ever after.
As part of the POV Shorts catalogue these films will be streaming year-round online. POV Shorts’ third season was named the ‘Best Curated Shorts Series’ at the 2021 IDA Awards, and The Love Bugs from the same season won ‘Best Short Documentary’ at the 2021 News and Doc Emmy awards.
