Neverbloomers: The Search for Grownuphood on CBC Documentary Channel – Monday February 27, 2012 8PM EST

CFN – Neverbloomers : the search for Grownuphood premieres tomorrow on the CBC Documentary channel.   LINK  Sharon Hyman’s first feature length doc is a generational retrospective navel gazing  journey.   It asks many questions; answers a few; but mostly what drew me to it and kept me watching was the connection I made.

As a 47 year old former Montrealer whose grand-father was a Cantor I too myself may be a Neverbloomer.    As I watched the scenes roll by there was a stream of connection between the interview subjects, Ms Hyman, and myself.

And that to me is the charm of this feature length Documentary.

For a pleasant view and chance for you other Neverbloomers to ponder your grownuphood check out Neverbloomers on the CBC Documentary channel Monday night starting at 8PM EST.

For more about Sharon Hyman and her film visit her website HERE.

I had the chance to connect with Sharon on Facebook and here is some of our chat:

CFN

So what is it about filmmaking that turns you on?

Sharon Hyman

but you said Goon is everything you love about Canada, I think you can say the same about Neverbloomers, it is so diverse and cool

CFN

• Neverbloomers was a trip for me – it was nice, familiar….my age group, my former home town, some of the same questions in life.  Maybe different sub characters….  I’m interviewing you via Facebook for the write up.   Did you see Goon?  And back to my question. What is it about filmmaking that turns you on?

  Sharon Hyman

  I just enjoy it, the immediacy in my case, since I do everything myself – grab a camera and film

  CFN

  Do you think you’ll Bloom one day?

Sharon Hyman

I think as Faith Nolan says in the film, we are always in a process of blooming and drooping, at the same time.

CFN

• In another review I think it was written that your film contrasted really nicely between your parents generation; I think they even compared it to “Mad Men’s” time frame. What do you think it the biggest difference between your Mom’s life and your own?  Is being a Neverbloomer a good thing?

  Sharon Hyman 

  I think it’s easy to romaticize our parents’ generation, they seemed to have actual social lives as opposed to us who have TV and Facebook. They had cocktail parties and community events and actually got out of the house!

  .
  On the other hand, my mother’s generation of women suffered from lack of options, thank God feminism came around and liberated both sexes! For even though she seemed like the uber grownup to me, as she says in the film, she just felt overwhelmed.
  CFN
  Do you like Cocktail parties? After the premier of Neverbloomers what’s next for Sharon?
   What’s your next project going to be about?
  .
  Sharon Hyman 
  I actually do not drink. But the idea is that people socilaised, not as isolated as our generation. I am in talks to work on a project with singer Luba to work on something about women in the music industry.
  CFN
  That’s amazing as I’m supposed to be interviewing her in a few weeks in Montreal!  A great voice.

  • How do you think the internet has changed the way we consume media and interact with each other? Especially for women?

  Sharon Hyman 
  In some ways it broadens our circles – you got to meet Luba and otherwise would not. On the other hand, nothing replaces true community and personal interaction, and the Internet does not offer that.
  
  
  CFN

  • Tangent: Was there a particular reason you entered Neverbloomers instead of just interviewing others?

    Was it just the introspective of searching, and did you find your answers much different than those of the people you filmed?  You can’t touch people online; physically – shake hands, hug, smells; at least not yet

  Sharon Hyman 

  I have been doing what I call “autodocumentaries” since I was a teenager so it was natural to be in the film. I like personal, first person films.
  Sometimes I think this is the era of the Neverbloomer.
  For starters, so many of the traditional “external trappings” of adulthood have changed – people marrying later, if at all (and then ending up divorced), the percentage of women who never have children has doubled in the last few decades, there are few cradle-to-grave jobs anymore, those sorts of things.And then there’s the lifestyle changes. I don’t know about you, but my dad was part of the Masonic temple and my parents had cocktail parties and belonged to the synagogue and actually went out of the house several nights a week! Our generation has TV and Facebook. Very isolating.As a result of these seismic shifts in social and economic roles, the ways that we as a society used to delineate between childhood and adulthood no longer exist. Which leaves many of us wondering how adulthood can be now be defined, when the traditional markers have all but disappeared.However, it is also possible that people always felt like neverbloomers and either did not realize it (before therapy and Oprah and, thank God, feminism came about) or never voiced their true feelings. My mother admits as much in the film, when I ask if she felt like a grownup – married with four kids by 27 – and she says “I just felt overwhelmed!”
  The main leasson that I learned is that everyone feels like a Neverbloomer, at least part of the time. We are always comparing our insides to other people’s outsides, and falling short in our eyes. But the truth is, almost everyone feels like an impostor grownup. Everyone feels like life is one big high school experience that just never ends. All those fears and insecurities, they never go away. But hopefully with inner work (and age) we can cope better with these feelings and gain more perspective and equanimity. As I say in the film, it’s not so much grownuphood as “awareuphood”!The other main lesson is that the “external trappings” of life are not necessarily the things that will make you feel like you have bloomed.
  .
  At first I felt like a Neverbloomer because I don’t have certain of those trappings that society tells us we need to be true adults – marriage, kids, a mortgage, a driver’s license! And then I realized, it really is about how you feel inside, and what is meaningful to you. Blooming is an internal process, not based on externals or how society says you “should” be.
  httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDGUmFyW-J8
  
  

  NEVERBLOOMERS: The Search For GrownUphood
  A new film by Sharon Hyman
  World broadcast premiere on
  CBC’s documentary channel
  February 27, 2012 | 8:00 PM ET/PT