Generation wealth a film by lauren greenfield running time

Amazon Studios presents

An Evergreen Pictures Production

GENERATION WEALTH
A FILM BY LAUREN GREENFIELD

RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes

OFFICIAL SELECTION:

2018 Sundance Film Festival – World Premiere

2018 SXSW Film Festival


PRESS NOTES

Distributor Contact:	Press Contact NY/Nat’l:	Press Contact LA/Nat’l:
Arianne Ayers	Ryan Werner	Nancy Willen
George Nicholis	Courtney Ott	ACME PR
Magnolia Pictures	Cinetic Media	[e-mail]
[phone] phone	[e-mail]	[phone]
[e-mail]	[e-mail] [phone]

SYNOPSIS

For the past 25 years acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles, Thin, kids+money, #likeagirl) has travelled the world, documenting with ethnographic precision and an artist’s sensitivity a vast range of cultural movements and moments. Yet, after so much seeking and searching, she realized that much of her work pointed at one uniting phenomenon: wealth culture. With her new film, Generation Wealth, she puts the pieces of her life’s work together for in an incendiary investigation into the pathologies that have created the richest society the world has ever seen. Spanning consumerism, beauty, gender, body commodification, aging and more, Greenfield has created a comprehensive cautionary tale about a culture heading straight for the cliff’s edge. Generation Wealth, simultaneously a deeply personal journey, rigorous historical essay, and raucously entertaining expose, bears witness to the global boom-bust economy, the corrupted American Dream and the human costs of capitalism, narcissism and greed.

AN INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN GREENFIELD
Q: Could you talk about how you began your ongoing, multi-format investigation of wealth? You’ve mounted a major photography show, published a book, and are now finishing a documentary film.
A: I’ve been looking at consumerism and how the values of consumerism have taken over the American Dream for as long as I’ve been a photographer, about 25 years. I started working on the book and a show about this wealth project during the economic crash in 2008, and began devoting myself full-time to it in 2012. While going through audio and video of characters from my photography work dating back to the early 1990s, I realized that these years were not just the 25 years that I had been a photographer, but that this was a period marked by a greater historical transformation in our culture and in our values. This was an era informed by the character of Gordon Gekko and by Reagan’s policies, one in which media expanded rapidly, and globalization became a force. It was also a time that produced the kind of saturation marketing and advertising culture we live in now. So that kind of drove the journey. I wanted to figure out how this had happened, to go back and look through the pictures, look at the way we changed through my documentation of all of these related events. At a certain point, I realized that I need ed to make a feature-length documentary to tell the story.
Q: There are so many different ways you could have gone with this film, so many examples out there of conspicuous wealth. How did you place limits on your scope?
A: It was a huge challenge. When we started, we had 4”x6” index cards—like scene cards—but each one was a different character. They covered an entire wall. It was overwhelming and hard to figure out where to start. It was a huge process of winnowing everything down. You can’t have everything in a film, and the nature of my work is very expansive and essayistic. It really depends on multiple characters and on repetition, on seeing that the same things are happening in Iceland, California, Florida and Dubai. Yet, in a movie, this kind of repetition can become tedious very quickly. I would say that we really pursued almost all of the narrative threads, and, in the end, there were several characters that really had their own arcs and their own evolutions that I found incredibly compelling and also spoke to the bigger issues of the idea of “generation
wealth.” Even so, the first cut was probably 4.5 hours. Luckily, after a marathon edit and many hours spent staring at the wall of photos and cards, we found a balance between the fascinating stories of a small group of characters, and the larger essay.
Q: Your story, your own personal relationship with wealth becomes part of the film. Can you talk about making that leap?
A: Making this film was a really challenging creative journey. Much of it evolved in the edit room, and I ended up spending thirty months in the edit, which is probably three times longer than I’ve spent on any other movie. I had always intended to be a part of the movie as a narrator, but as the process went on, it ended up becoming more personal. My work is really intimate with people, and I have this really close access and trust with my subjects so we’re able to tackle really hard things. It just seemed kind of natural in the course of making this film that I also had to turn the camera on myself and consider why I was attracted to these subjects and why I had been returning to these questions about the culture of consumerism for so long. A big part of my work, though, is about how we’re all complicit. This made it seem natural to look at my own part in it. I’m the connective tissue of this serendipitous photographic, sociological, and character-driven deep dive into this one subject.
A: It does seem as though Generation Wealth is a kind of conscious summation of themes you’ve explored throughout your career.
Q: While making my second film, The Queen of Versailles, during the financial crash, I had an insight: all of this work I had done, in different media, all over the world, was all connected, and told a story about what we have become as a society. If you’re not happy with a 25,000 square foot house, and you’re building a 90,000 square foot house, that’s kind of a metaphor for how we’re never happy with what we have, right? My first movie, Thin, was about eating disorders, and what I realized in that film was that it was really about addiction, and that all addictions are about numbing pain or numbing trauma and that it doesn’t really matter whether it’s drugs or alcohol or eating disorder or cutting, they all have the same effect. In many ways, I realized consumerism and the desire for more was a similar, pathological addiction. The financial crash
and the specter of climate change made it feel really important to make Generation Wealth now because we are on an unsustainable path in terms of the environment, in terms of values, in terms of family, in terms of community.
Q: With so many possible avenues to explore, so many characters and so many filmmaking modes in play, how do you, then, go about structuring a film like this?
A: The first half of the movie is more of an essay exploring many of the themes of generation wealth. The framing is my photographic journey and a historical essay about the way we have changed over the last 25 years. I’m a part of it, but really as guide to show where the photographic work comes from, and how it developed. We tried to go through the ideas very thematically, from consumerism to beauty and gender to sexual capital, to the commodification of human beings. And then we move to the idea that if people are being commodified, if one’s value, especially in the case of young girls, is your sexuality, then you can’t age. We kind of swim through all of these themes until we crash, literally in the financially crisis, and figuratively as many of the characters hit rock bottom. Once we crash, it’s really the characters and their insights that pull us out of it. In the second half of the film, the characters sweep us away as we move from thematic explorations with characters who represent ideas, to a more personal and emotional experience of the costs of generation wealth.
Q: It ends up being a very structurally risky work.
A: This is part of why the film took me so long and was such an evolution to complete. It’s part photographic journey of an artist, part historical essay, part character-driven narrative and part personal film. I tried to weave together all of those strands to tell a story that, in the end, is not about me, or about my work, or about the characters, but really a bigger story about where we’ve come to as a culture, and where we are as a society.
Q: I imagine you thought a lot about this during the process, but how do you display wealth on screen, and capture the flash and glamour of excess, while maintaining distance? How do you make sure your audience knows that you’re mounting a critique?

A: I’ve always tried to take people on a journey where there are things that draw you in, whether it is a photograph with a shiny surface, saturated colors, aspirational experiences, sexy bodies, the aesthetic of the popular culture, and then once you are hooked in, drawn to these things, I tell a very critical story that allows you to examine your own complicity. What I’m looking at is how we do all want these things. This want crosses class, borders, age and races. and so really what I’m looking at is that phenomenon, of wealth very broadly defined. And not just having money, but also wanting to look like you have it—that idea of “fake it ‘til you make it.” By featuring characters that have been on these journeys and have seen what it was like on the other side, we can benefit from their knowledge. I think that’s also the interesting thing about the film and about these characters—they are not traditional heroes, they are people who have taken very tough journeys. If you go into Generation Wealth thinking that it might be cool to be on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, you’re going to come out with a different point of view.

Q: Can you think of other historical moments that echo what we’re experiencing in terms of wealth right now? Or is this totally unprecedented?
A: I definitely see similarities in both the fall of Rome and also the kind of Gatsby-esque gilded age, the feeling of dancing on the deck of the Titanic represented by the gold shoes under the title. I see this moment as a new Gilded Age, and it does have parallels in other times of decadence. Chris Hedges says in the beginning of the film that when societies have their greatest moments of wealth, this is generally the moment right before their death. I think the stakes are higher for us now, and I think that we feel that tension every day, particularly over this past year. A big part of what I am looking at in the wealth phenomenon is the idea that we used to compare ourselves to people that we knew, and would aspire to having what our neighbor had, and now we compare ourselves to the people we see on TV. Keeping up with the Joneses has become “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” This is scientifically proven—when we see images of wealth in the media, we think that it is more common than it is, and that that stimulates our desire, and stimulates a very unrealistic desire, so there becomes this huge aspirational gap between what we want and what we can afford. I think that this drives a lot of our choices and caused the financial crash and is part of the culture that gave rise to Donald Trump. Generation Wealth references Kim Kardashian, the 5-digit Birkin bag and Donald Trump, but it is more
about the culture that made those three “phenomena” possible. I think that when you see these connections and see the things that are propelling your behavior, it gives them less power, and gives you more agency. Ultimately, that is what I try to do in my work—I attempt to connect the dots between cultural phenomena that we don’t always see as related, to expose the matrix that affects our daily choices. The characters in the film have had journeys that have woken them up in ways we can learn from.


ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
LAUREN GREENFIELD (Writer, Director, Producer)

 

Emmy-award-winning photographer/filmmaker, Lauren Greenfield, is considered a preeminent chronicler of youth culture, gender, and consumerism as a result of her monographs (Girl Culture, Fast Forward, THIN, Generation Wealth), and documentaries (THIN, kids+money, The Queen of Versailles). The Queen of Versailles won her the Best Documentary Director Award at Sundance Film Festival.  Her viral ad, #LikeAGirl, swept commercial awards, including 14 Cannes Lions 2015, was named 3rd Best Ad of the Decade, and earned Greenfield the #1 director/Most Awarded Director by AdAge, the first woman to top this list. Her latest body of work, Generation Wealth, was released as a monograph (Phaidon Press) on May 2017 to rave reviews. The accompanying exhibition first opened in Los Angeles at the Annenberg Space for Photography on April 2017 and has since traveled to the International Center of Photography in New York City. It will open at the Nobel Peace Center (Oslo) on February 2018, after which it will travel to the Fotomuseum (The Hague) and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen). Her latest documentary film, Generation Wealth, will premiere on opening night of the Sundance Film Festival and will be released theatrically in 2018 by Amazon Studios.

 

Lauren Greenfield Filmography:

 

Generation Wealth (2018, 106 mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures

  

Magic City (2015, Director’s Cut 30mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures 

 

The Bling Dynasty (2015, 30mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures 

 

The Queen of Versailles (2012, 100 mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures 

 

Beauty CULTure (2011, 30 mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures 

 

kids+money (2008, 32 mins), Director. Produced by Evergreen Pictures 

 

THIN (102 mins, 2006), Director. Distributed by HBO

 

FRANK EVERS (Producer)

 

Frank Evers is the founder and executive producer of Evergreen Pictures, an award-winning production company that specializes in the production of documentary films (Generation Wealth, The Queen of Versailles, Magic City, Bling Dynasty, Beauty CULTture, kids+money, Fashion Show).  In addition to running Evergreen Pictures, Frank is the CEO of INSTITUTE, an artist management and content distribution company representing world-renowned documentary photographers.  

 

Frank is also the co-founder of the New York Photo Festival and the co-creator of The Future of Storytelling, two NY-based annual events that have attracted hundreds of thousands of participants since 2008. Between 1995 and 2005, Frank spent ten years in the video-game business, running product development and production for Activision, Vivendi, and Disney Interactive. During this time, his video games generated over $1 billion in global sales. Frank started in the film business with Sony Pictures Entertainment, and he later executive-produced the cult classic film Swimming with Sharks. 

GENERATION WEALTH: THE CHARACTERS
Cathy: We meet Cathy as a 31-year-old school bus driver from Virginia, who goes to Brazil to undergo a tummy tuck, a breast augmentation, a nose job, liposuction, and a Brazilian butt lift—all without general anaesthesia and all paid for by credit card. Checking in with her in the years since then, we learn that fixing her body has created financial problems for Cathy and may have contributed to a family tragedy.
Florian: A 55-year-old former hedge-fund manager whose net worth was at one time $800 million, Florian has fled the United States to avoid arrest by the FBI on charges of defrauding investors. Released on a technicality after 15 months in an Italian prison, he now lives in his native Germany, which will not extradite him. He claims to regret his former fixation on making money, saying that he was trapped in his own ambition and a “hamster in a diamond-studded, gold wheel.”
Conrad: Conrad is Florian’s son, who reflects on growing up with vast wealth but a distant, absent father. Conrad recalls one effort at father-son bonding, when Florian, fed up with 15-year-old Conrad’s shyness around girls, took him to lose his virginity to a prostitute. Conrad paid with a jar of coins he’d collected.
Kacey/Daveney/Courtney: At age 22 a successful porn star sought after for her child-like physique, Kacey gained brief notoriety after Charlie Sheen paid her $30,000 for a days-long party that landed him in the hospital with a drug overdose. At 27, Kacey has seen the dark side of fame, posting a video of her suicide attempt on YouTube and going bankrupt from the ensuing medical bills, and decides to start fresh with a new name, a new body (breast implants and a nose job) and a pregnancy.
Valbjörn: A fisherman by trade, Valbjörn became one of many Icelanders who went to work in banks during the go-go years of the early 2000s, when the country made a highly leveraged bid to turn itself into a global financial center. He talks about the boom time, when he and others like him rushed to buy luxury cars and build houses with magazine-ready décor, saunas, and state-of-the-art appliances. Laid off when the 2008 financial crisis hit, Valbjörn returned to fishing and a quieter life that he says makes him happier.
Cliff (G-Mo): Greenfield met Cliff while working on her 1997 first book, Fast Forward, about growing up in Los Angeles. We meet Cliff in 1995 as a 20-year-old rapper called G-Mo making his first music video (“Ballin’”) and celebrating hip-hop’s new vision of the American Dream—being served lobster poolside by a beautiful, uniformed maid and counting stacks of cash. After the “Ballin” dream as a rapper didn’t work out, we find Cliff today as a down-to-earth and middle class father of six, who has taken to heart traditional values of family and education.
Mijanou: Another of Greenfield’s earliest subjects, Mijanou was popular as an 18-year-old Beverly Hills High School senior, winning the class’s “Best Physique” award. Now 42 and bringing up a daughter of her own, she recalls the damaging legacy of being shaped by the “male gaze,” which won her acceptance as an immigrant who was less well off than her peers.
Paris: In 1993 Greenfield’s lens captured Paris, the 16-year-old son of REO Speedwagon guitarist Kevin Cronin, as he partied out of control in a world where parents were largely absent. After years of struggling with drug addiction, Paris finally got sober at age 29. We see him here coming to terms with his own feelings of abandonment and inadequacy and his determination to be a loving father to his baby daughter.
Limo Bob: The self-proclaimed “Limo King,” Bob owns a fleet of limousines which includes the longest limousine in the world with a swimming pool and a helicopter landing pad. The Chicago native proudly shows off his trademark 33 pounds of gold and diamond jewelry .
Tiffany: Tiffany left her home in Kansas as a single mother to seek fame and fortune in Las Vegas. Now a leading VIP hostess, arranging high-end entertainment and attractive escorts she calls Arm Charms for celebrity clients, her son has to reckon with his mom’s choices which affect his own. She admits there are downsides to success in Vegas nightlife, saying, “You sell your soul to the devil.”
Suzanne: Suzanne was a 37-year-old hedge-fund executive when Greenfield photographed her for a story on women who spent large sums on personal maintenance. Suzanne spends her 30’s focused on making money and building her successful career. She postpones childbearing and at age 40, Greenfield follows her struggle to conceive a child, as she goes through 25 IVF cycles and eventually hires a surrogate to bear her baby.

CREDITS
AMAZON STUDIOS PRESENTS
AN EVERGREEN PICTURES PRODUCTION
A LAUREN GREENFIELD FILM
GENERATION WEALTH
Written and Directed by Lauren Greenfield
Produced by Frank Evers
Produced by Lauren Greenfield
Produced by Wallis Annenberg
Executive Producers

Regina K. Scully

Lilly Hartley & Jeffrey Tarrant

Geralyn Dreyfous

Music by Jeff Beal
Edited by

Aaron Wickenden, ACE

Michelle Witten

Victor Livingston

Dan Marks
Line Producer Jennifer Kobzik
Consulting Producers Danielle Renfrew Behrens

Keven McAlester

Cinematography
Robert Chappell

Lauren Greenfield

Shana Hagan

Jerry Risius

Lars Skree

Generation Wealth Photo Editor

and Exhibition Curator Trudy Wilner Stack

Editorial Consultants Mary Lampson

Robb Moss

Pedro Kos
Co-Producers

Sandra Keats

Julie Frankel
Associate Producer Keri Oberly

Additional Cinematography

Tom Hurwitz

Sarah Levy

Joshua Mayes

David Morrison

Brian O’Carroll

Robert Richman

Jenna Rosher

Malik Sayeed

Sascha Schöberl
Second Camera Operators - (2 columns)
Micah Bisagni

Margaret Byrne 

Brooke Jagneaux

Josh Kesner

Arnar Thorisson

Nathan Wilson

Photo/Camera Assistants (2 columns)
Andy Rocchelli

Peter Wintersteller

Keri Oberly

Jared Mechaber

Terence Patrick

Alyson Aliano

Chris Birck

Cody Burrows

Yuriy Chichkov

Conor Fleming

Kevin Fox

Spencer Grundler

Matthias Arni Ingimarsson

Daniel Prokofiev

John Schoenfeld

Billy Yates

Location Sound Recordists

Alan Barker

Scott Beatty

Árni Benediktsson

A. Tad Chamberlain

Fernando Delgado

Pétur Einarsson

Eick Hoemann

Michael Jones

Michael Kool

Terence Lloren

Trevor McKenna

Peter Miller

Mark Patino

Richard Pooler

Zach Porter

Liu Qi

Igor Ushankov

Qiao Xin
Researchers Susan Lynley Welsh

Archival Researcher Michelle Sullivan

Field Producers/Fixers María Lea Ævarsdóttir

Anton Cherenkov

Jutta Feit

Tchavdar Georgiev

Ingrid Goodwin

Nausheen Ishtiaq-Chen

Olga Izakson

Maya Lilly

Sergey Rezanov

Ellen Xu

Production Coordinators Carley Mostar

Robin Rose Singer

Jessica Toscano

Location DITs Peter Belov

Mike McGee

Tim Roseman
Drone Operators Paris Cronin

Þórður K. Einarsson

Colm Hogan
Archivist Katie Moran
Production Assistants

Shelby Adair

Charlotte Acevedo

Maryann Buchanan

Colleen Cambier

Jenna Carlie

Tanawan Chairin 

Jo Yee Chu

Kady Dulny

Parvin Guiv

Julie Latrémouille

Tony Le

Dani Jiaxin Li

Amanda Majors

Tyler McClelland

Lynn Millspaugh

Dave Minogue

Julie O’Brien

Maya Patel

Róbert Pétursson

Jenny Rennpening

Jordan Sevigny

Tracy Witsch

Ryan Wagner

Post Production Producer Jennifer Kobzik

Photographic Imaging and Printing Richard Maier

Presentation Reel Editor Chad Beck
Assistant Editor Jim Rosenthal

Gavin Segall-Abrams

Main Title/Graphics Design at Yankee Peddler Destroit
Creative Director Bill Sneed

Executive Producer Erica MacKinnon

Post Production Technical Coordinator Jim Rosenthal
DI Completed at Shed Los Angeles
Supervising Digital Colorist Yvan Lucas
Digital Colorist Billy Hobson
Digital Conform Editor Lisa Tutunjian
Assistant Digital Conform Editor Sam Ziaie
Finishing Producer Nick Monton
Associate Finishing Producer Amy Redfern
Imaging Scientist Matthew Tomlinson
Executive Producer Shed LA Paul O'Shea

Supervising Sound Editor & Sound Designer Peter Albrechtsen, MPSE

Dialogue Editor Jacques Pedersen
Sound Editor Lars Halvorsen
Assistant Sound Designer Mikkel Nielsen
Foley Artist Heikki Kossi, MPSE
Foley Mixer Kari Vähäkuopus
Sound Editing Facilities Offscreen
Foley Studio H5 Film Sound

Post-Production Sound Services by

Skywalker Sound

a Lucasfilm Ltd. Company

Marin County, California
Re-Recording Mixer Pete Horner
Assistant Re-recording Mixer Jeff King
Engineering Services Scott Levine
Digital Editorial Support David Peifer
Post-Production Sound Accountant Daniela Pontoriero
Post-Production Finance Manager Mike Peters
Client Services Eva Porter
Scheduling Carrie Perry
Skywalker Sound Executive Staff

General Manager Josh Lowden

Head of Production Jon Null

Head of Engineering Steve Morris

Score Conducted, Orchestrated & Recorded by Jeff Beal
Recorded at Many Rooms Music, Agoura Hills, CA
Additional Orchestration Marco Valerio Antonini
Music Editors Craig Pettigrew

Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz

VO Recording Facility The Village Studios

Margarita Mix

Additional Post Audio Facility Formosa Group

Twentieth Century Fox

Legal Services

Victoria Cook/Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz, P.C.

Chris Perez, Kathryn R. Alimohammadi/ Donaldson + Callif, LLP

Marvin Putnam/Latham & Watkins LLP

Insurance Services Winnie Wong, Momentous Insurance Brokerage
Web/Book Design Project Projects
Publicity Nancy Willen/Acme PR
Production Accountant Tina Murphy Prouty
Distribution Advisor Josh Braun/Submarine Entertainment
Equipment Provided by Canon U.S.A.

Very Special Thanks

Deborah Aaronson

The Annenberg Space for Photography

Kate Amend

Rich Appel

Sara Bader

Joan Beal

Bob Berney

Kolbeinn Blandon

Shanah Blevins

Jennifer Brandel

Rhoda Brogan

Canon U.S.A.

Catherine Bull

Katie Cronin

Crossroads School

Pamela Gustava Curry

Jón Gauti Dagbjartsson

Ragga Eiríksdóttir

Francis & Brigitte Evers

Gabriel Evers

Noah Evers

Sean & Dyala Evers

Theresa Evers

Kristin Feeley

Sharin Fitter

Scott Foundas

Keith Fox

Devin Friedman

Siv Friðleifsdóttir

Chuck Garrett

Guðmundur Gíslason

David Glean

David Greenbaum

Matthew Greenfield

Patricia Greenfield

Sheldon Greenfield & Sherrie Kaplan

Princess Nataly Golitsyna

Mariza Gonzalez

Jill Goldman

Brian Groen

Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir

Kristin Hrafnkelsdóttir

Nicole Holofcener

Maria Homm

Ted Hope

Phil Hwang

Tabitha Jackson

Björn Jónsson

Ásgeir Jónsson

Dr. Stephen Josephson

Cinny Kennard

Simon Kilmurry

Per Kirkegaard

Sloane Klevin

Kathy Koester

Alex Kuczynski

Emmanuel Lubezki

Gerd Ludwig

Caryn Maclean

David McWilliams

Skúli Mogensen

Brett Morgen

Dan Neri

Barbara Norfleet

Brie Oh

Scott & Kristin Paton

Sam Polk

Krista Prestek

William Prior

Óttarr Proppé

Pamela Reis

Lucie Reiss

Joseph Resch

Michael Rothman

Juliet Schor

Deanna Sevigny

Daragh Sharkey

Matt Shonfeld

Haki Simsek 

Jim Solomon

Bobby J Strauser

Lauren Strogoff

Oliver Stone

Union Editorial 

Jamie Weintraub

Dr. Jessica Wu

Marina Zenovich

Special Thanks
Andy Abowitz

Rachel Abramowitz

Allison Amon

Artron Art Center Shenzhen

Paul Au

Artem Barinov

Amy Berg

Joe Beshenkovsky

Jason Bitner

Blue Lagoon

Iva Boteva/iRow Fitness Studio

Danny Breen 

Walker Bunting

Columbia County Fair and Livestock Show

Condé Nast Entertainment

Ger Daly

Gigi de Pourtales Davis

Diesel Cars

Lucy Fisher 

Hayley Fisk

Franny Flackett-Levin

Alisa Fliss

Sacha Frankfurt

Brooke Frederick

J.C. Gabel

Jim Gao

Jennifer Golub

Howard Gordon

Wade Graham

GQ

Shelly Guillory

Jón Örn Guðbjartsson

Matt Harvey

Celia Hoffman

Institute for Artist Management

Jesse Jacobsen-Gal

Katy Jarzebowski

Alexandra Johnes

Douglas & Francoise Kirkland

Kate Klausner

Chloe Korban

Joanna Kulesza

Labyrinth Books

Claire Ladd

Pat Lanza

Alina Lee

Guillermo Lemus

Mark Levin

Alessandra Lichtenfeld

Mark Lipson

Magic City

Michael Mailer

John McCormick

Chris McKinley 

Lisa Mehling

Eileen Meyer

Keely Morrison

Susan Morrison

Andrew Nackerman

Jordan Naftalis

Rabbi Joel Nickerson

Old Library, Trinity College

Adam Parker

Richard Parks

Þorlákshöfn

Sara Reed

Davy Rothbart

Andrew Rubenstein

Jessie Rubin

Institute Sarita

Mady Sieracki

Kristen Scharler

Jeffrey, Lienna & Sasha Silver

Hanna Tannenbaum

Tatler Ball

The G Hotel

Mondrian Los Angeles

Phoenix Project Ireland

Trinity Business School

Michael Williams

Sara Joe Wolansky

Jamie Wolf 

WOW Airlines

Jaclyn Wu

Ron Yerxa

Grace Yoon

Miranda Yousef

The filmmaker would like to thank her family and

the subjects of the photographs and film who generously shared their lives,

as well as the following writers and scholars on whose work she relied:

Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. 

The Body Project an Intimate History

of American Girls. Vintage Books, 1998.
Easton Ellis, Bret. Less Than Zero.

Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Hedges, Chris.

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy

and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Nation Books, 2009.

Kuczynski, Alex. 

Beauty Junkies: inside Our $15 Billion

Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery.

Doubleday, 2006.

Lewis, Michael. 

Boomerang.

W. W. Norton & Co, 2012.

Maier, Charles S. 

Among Empires: American

Ascendancy and Its Predecessors.

Harvard University Press, 2006.
McWilliams, David. 

Follow The Money: The Tale

of the Merchant of Ennis.

Gill & Macmillan, 2010.

---. The Pope's Children: The Irish

Economic Triumph and the Rise

of Ireland's New Elite.

1st ed., Wiley, 2008.

Norfleet, Barbara.

All the Right People.

Bullfinch Press, 1988.

Schor, Juliet B. 

Born to Buy: A Groundbreaking Exposé

of a Marketing Culture That Makes

Children "Believe They Are What They Own."

(USA Today). Scribner, 2005.
---. The Overworked American: The

Unexpected Decline of Leisure.

BasicBooks, 1993.

---. The Overspent American: Why

We Want What We Don't Need.

HarperCollins, 1999.

Thomas C. O’Guinn and L.J. Shrum.

The Role of Television in the

Construction of Consumer Reality.

Journal of Consumer Research 23,

no. 4 (March 1997): 278-94.
Generation Wealth was published by Phaidon Press, 2017.

ISBN# 978-0714872124.

Available at Amazon.com and bookstores.
For Generation Wealth exhibition venues and dates,

visit www.generation-wealth.com.

Photos/Footage Courtesy of
"A Hike In The Dolomites,” Eric Lindqvist,

evmlphotography.weebly.com. All rights reserved.

ABCNEWS VIDEOSOURCE

ABC News VideoSource/ABC News/Getty Images

The Annenberg Foundation

AP Archive

Bloomberg LP

Limo Bob

Hans-Jurgen Burkard

Channel 2 News/365 Media

Gabby Chelliah

Jeremy Christensen

C-SPAN

Evergreen Pictures

Frank Evers

George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum

G-Mo

Lauren Greenfield Photography

Patricia Greenfield

Sheldon Greenfield & Sherrie Kaplan

interscience film

Institute for Artist Management

Gary Isaacson/Image Bank Film/Getty Images

ITN/ITN/Getty Images

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

Steve Mack/Getty Images

picture alliance / Tom Solo

Prelinger/Archive Films: Creative/Getty Images

Queen of Versailles, LLC

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Stock Media provided by VideoFort/Pond5

TAESA, Boeing 727-24C. (MSN 19528/LN 465).

Guadalajara International Airport, (GDL/MMGL),

Jalisco, Mexico/November 26th, 2006./

Author: Ricardo Tomás Morales Centeno

Tribune Broadcasting - Joan De Jesus/

Tribune Broadcasting/Getting Images

WDR Köln
Music Courtesy of

"Already Knowing"

Written and Performed by Cool Amerika 

Produced by (Buddah Bless) / Alliance Music Group

Courtesy of Alliance Music Group
"Ballin'"

Words and Music by McClifton T. Magee Jr., Randy Muller, Edward Thomas Magee Jr.

Performed by G-mo, Courtesy of McCliffton T Magee Jr.

(c) Songs Of Universal, Inc. on behalf of itself, Gimmemo Music, and Wit It Music/Universal Music Corp. on behalf of itself and One To One Music Publishing Co.

“Theme For Villain” by Joe Kraemer
“Perfect Crime” by Ashley Barnes, David Tobin, Jason Pedder and Jeff Meegan
Additional Material by

‘Less than Zero’/Simon & Schuster/Bret Easton Ellis

‘Less Than Zero’/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,

Amercent Films, American Entertainment Partners L.P./

Jon Avnet, Jordan Kerner/Mark Kanievska

‘SexTv - Episode: Girl Culture’/Jane Juska/Lynn Bianchi

‘Fast Forward: Growing up in the Shadow of Hollywood’/

Alfred A. Knopf and Melcher Media, Inc./Lauren Greenfield

MSNBC News

Crossroads School/Yearbook

‘Wall Street’/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,

Amercent Films, American Entertainment Partners L.P./

Edward R. Pressman/Oliver Stone

Magazine page: Das Unternehmen

Harvard Yearbook

'The Price is Right'/CBS/Mark Goodson Productions

‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’, Season 1,

Episode 1 & Season 5, Episode 1/

E! Entertainment Television, Inc./

Bunim-Murray Productions (BMP),

Ryan Seacrest Productions

‘The Apprentice’, Season 1, Episode 1/

NBC/MGM Television, Trump Productions LLC,

Mark Burnett Productions

‘Girl Culture’/Chronicle Books/Lauren Greenfield

Con Estilo TV/Miss Universe 2013

The Hearst Corporation/Marie Claire/

‘Who Spends the Most on Looking Good?’/

Melissa Macron-Nitolo/2004

‘Thin’/HBO/Lauren Greenfield

‘Toddlers and Tiaras'/Season 2, Episode 18/

TLC/Authentic Entertainment

Kim Kardashian/’Superstar'

INK 361

Instagram

Facebook

Scoopla/’Charlie Sheen's Porn Star Cheque For Kacey Jordan’

Condé Nast/GQ/’Coke, Hookers, Hospital, Repeat.’/

Amy Wallace/2011

‘Not the Bradys XXX: Bradys Meet the Partridge Family’/

All Media Play, X-Play/Scoot David, Will Ryder

‘American Bukake 39'/Jeff Mike Productions

‘The Swan’/Season 1, episode 1/Fox Television/

Galan Entertainment

‘Let It Be’/The Beatles/Across the Universe

‘Gag Factor 30’/Jeff Mike Productions/Jim Powers

YouTube/JR

PopTvDotCom/’Kacey Jordan – Charlie Sheen’s Porno

Actress Girlfriend’

NewsFilter/’Pornstar Kacey Jordan,

who was banging Charlie Sheen,

attempts suicide during a webcam show’

Photographs © Lauren Greenfield/INSTITUTE
This program was supported by a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program with support from

JustFilms | Ford Foundation

Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute



In association with Candescent Films and Artemis Rising Foundation.

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