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49 Up

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Premiere Date: October 9, 2007

Synopsis

49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.

In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.

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TAGS: children, class, economics, society

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Filmmaker

Michael Apted

Michael Apted

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There aren't many pieces of work, especially in film, that have the patience or the longevity or the time to honor the drama of ordinary life; and after all, the drama of what we all have to go through — children, jobs, marriage, the things that touch us — is the big drama of life, far more so than the drama of movies and television.”

— Michael Apted

Film Update

Critical Acclaim

The Up series [is] perhaps the most original and innovative enterprise in the history of documentary film.”

— Richard Schickel, Time Magazine