Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.
Related Movies
In Ictu Oculi (2020)
The six-decade transformation of a block of houses, shown by means of artfully featured archival shots, highlights the beauty and sadness of human-made decay. In the blink of an eye 66 years pass by and a savings bank replaces a church.
Bananaland: Blood, Bullets & Poison (2016)
For consumers, bananas are a delicious and nutritious start to the day, a healthy snack and a fixture in our fruit bowls. For millions of residents in the banana lands, the production of bananas means social upheaval, violence and pesticide poisoning. Banana Land explores the origins of these disparate realities, and opens the conversation on how workers, producers and consumers can address this disconnect.
La propia gente (1981)
This documentary is comprised of three shorts: 'El Afinque de Marín' that follows the musicians of the group Madera. 'Yo hablo a Caracas' about an indigenous leader and his reply to the authorities of the venezuelan goverment regarding the violations towards his people and finally 'Mayami Nuestro' chronicles the relationship of venezuelans during the eighties with the city of Miami.
The Story of Stuff (2007)
For most of the world, consumption has been the unquestioned duty of every individual. Then garbage activist Annie Leonard brought her two-hour lecture to Free Range who helped her turn it into a 20-minute animated revolution. Shown in thousands of classrooms, endlessly blasted by Fox News, viewed more than 10 million times, The Store of Stuff finally opens the door to a serious cultural dialog about the costs of consumption.
Exergo (2024)
Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.
97% Owned (2012)
97% owned present serious research and verifiable evidence on our economic and financial system. This is the first documentary to tackle this issue from a UK-perspective and explains the inner workings of Central Banks and the Money creation process. When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it's essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down? Produced by Queuepolitely and featuring Ben Dyson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins of The New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, the "HBOS Whistleblower" Paul Moore, Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future and Nick Dearden from the Jubliee Debt Campaign.
Der unaufhaltsame aufstieg von Amazon (2018)
Amazon has become one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and only the second company ever to be valued over US$1 trillion. This film investigates its strategies, inner workings and ideologies and asks whether the services that we have become so dependent on could eventually cost us our hard won freedoms, and how one of the world’s most trusted brands has influenced our individual behaviour, labour force and culture.
American Made Movie (2013)
American Made Movie looks back on the glory days of U.S. manufacturing when there was a more balanced relationship between the goods produced and consumed, and illustrates how technology and globalization have changed the competitive landscape for companies doing business in America, as well as overseas. By illustrating the successes of companies and entrepreneurs that, of their own accord, have prospered without adopting the practices of their competitors, American Made Movie shows the positive impact these jobs can have on national and local economies in the face of great challenges.
Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2020)
Ruth Wilson Gilmore discusses racial capitalism, and her activism outside Lisbon, Portugal.
Out of Fashion (2015)
A documentary following an Estonian fashion designer Reet Aus on a global tour to explore the origin process and the environmental footprints of today's fast paced fashion industry. On the road the mission takes an unexpected turn towards trying to introduce her "upcycling" inspired product line to some of the major fashion retailers to increase awareness of the massive resource waste built into the current product lifecycle.
Moving Ice (2024)
Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.
The GDR Complex (2016)
In 1987 GDR citizen Mario Röllig was arrested in Hungary for attempting to flee the GDR. Nowadays he gives talks about his experiences. This portrait shows just how subjective and riddled with taboos attempts to interpret GDR history can be.
Freedom From Choice (2014)
Freedom From Choice explores the endless layers of backroom dealing that is the US lobbying industry. Through a series of thought-provoking interviews, experts from numerous industries explain in simple terms how the political 'revolving door' creates unfair regulations which affect their industry. Supplemented by recent news clips and archival footage, the experts paint a startling picture of the overregulation of modern American life.
Consumers (2015)
Sammy is a 14 year old girl who makes YouTube videos. Robby just moved to New York City after college. Jerry is a single 34 year old network administrator living in the suburbs. Through their fragmented experiences, Consumers explores the dialectical problematics of the contemporary experience.
Black Thoughts (2020)
A man that is a stranger, is an incredibly easy man to hate. However, walking in a stranger’s shoes, even for a short while, can transform a perceived adversary into an ally. Power is found in coming to know our neighbor’s hearts. For in the darkness of ignorance, enemies are made and wars are waged, but in the light of understanding, family extends beyond blood lines and legacies of hatred crumble.
SHEIN : Enquête sur le géant de la fast fashion (2025)
Through the account of her research, encounters and experiences, Claire Latour, an influencer, explores the inner workings of the ultra-fast fashion giant: Shein. A true ecological cost, the quality and toxicity of the garments, sales techniques, greenwashing, and the reasons behind the ultra-low prices, this unprecedented investigation leads her to question her way of consuming… but also of influencing.
Beyond Fordlandia (2017)
An environmental account of Henry Ford’s Amazon experience decades after its failure. The story addressed by the film begins in 1927, when the Ford Motor Company attempted to establish rubber plantations on the Tapajós River, a primary tributary of the Amazon. This film addresses the recent transition from failed rubber to successful soybean cultivation for export, and its implication for land usage.
A Goy Guide to World History (2014)
Spanning over 2,000 years, this study looks at the complex relationship between Jewish and Catholic thought from a social and historical perspective. Examining different significant moments for both religions throughout the centuries, this commentary on the book analyzes and explains the conflicts that have arisen between the two religions since their beginnings.