• Title:
• Wide Awake

• Director:
• Alan Berliner

• English

• USA, 90 minutes

• Venue:
• Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater and
  The Avalon

• Purchase Tickets:
• Show 1   Show 2  

“I’ve been tired my whole life,” award-winning documentary Filmmaker Alan Berliner (Nobody’s Business; The Sweetest Sound) explains to sleep specialist after sleep specialist in Wide Awake. Delving into the world of sleep-science, he turns the camera on himself in this innovative, funny and ingenious film. While Berliner has always considered himself a night owl, he begins to explore the source of this behavior. Was it the nights he stayed awake as a child listening to his parents argue prior to their divorce? Is it something genetic he inherited from his father or his grandfather?  Is it something he risks passing on to his own child who is born during the course of the film?  Or is his sleeplessness just the price of living a creative life? What begins as scientific inquiry moves into the realm of family history and personal biography, with a grace and wit of a rare breed. Following the premiere of the film at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Variety wrote “Berliner… has the gift of addressing intimate subjects and making them universal… Nowhere has he done this better than with Wide Awake.” 

Special Guest: Alan Berliner, director

Read our interview with Alan Berliner in the WJFFblog

Read Desson Thomson's interview with Alan Berliner in Saturday's Washington Post.

• Purchase Tickets:
• Show 1   Show 2  

• View Trailer