HBO Documentary Films Presents 51 BIRCH STREET

Do we ever really know our parents?

And if we were suddenly given the chance to know all about them, would we take it?

These are the primal human questions at the heart of the documentary feature film 51 BIRCH STREET. Filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe his parent’s 54-year marriage was a good one. So he isn’t prepared when a few months after his mother’s unexpected death, his father phones to announce that he’s moving to Florida to live with his secretary from 40 years before.
 
Always close to his mother and equally distant from his father, he’s stunned and intrigued.  When the long-time family home is sold, Doug realizes that he has only a few short weeks before his father will be gone, and that a lifetime of memories will be packed away forever. He grabs his camera and heads to suburban Long Island determined to learn more about his parents’ marriage and confront this stranger who is his father.
 
Through probing conversations and the surprising discovery of 35 years of his mother’s daily diaries, he comes to terms with two parents who are far more complex and troubled than he ever imagined.
 
Both funny and heartbreaking, 51 BIRCH STREET is the first person account of filmmaker Doug Block’s unpredictable journey through a whirlwind of dramatic life-changing events: the death of his mother, the uncovering of decades of family secrets through his mother’s diaries, and the ensuing reconciliation with his 83-year-old father. What begins as Doug’s own intimate, autobiographical story, soon evolves into a broader meditation on the universal themes of love, marriage, fidelity and the mystery of family.
 
51 BIRCH STREET spans 60 years and three generations, and weaves together hundreds of faded snapshots, 8mm home movies and two decades of verité footage. The result is a timeless tale of what can happen when our most fundamental assumptions about family are suddenly called into question.

51 BIRCH STREET will premiere on HBO/Cinemax on May 8, 2007 @ 7:00pm

www.51birchstreet.com
Running Time: 88 minutes

** The New York Times lead film critic, A.O. Scott, and Jim Emerson of the Chicago Sun-Times and RogerEbert.com, named 51 Birch Street one of their Top Ten Films of 2006 **

 ** The National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics and Rolling Stone Magazine named 51 Birch Street one of the outstanding documentaries of the year ** 

** Featured on Ebert & Roeper’s year-end roundup of the Ten Best Films of 2006 (the only documentary on the list) **