On the 50th anniversary of the International Center of Photography opening its doors to the public, ICP is pleased to present a conversation with founder Cornell Capa’s goddaughter, Rachel Elizabeth Seed, on the making of her film A Photographic Memory.

The film explores memory, legacy, and the power of the archive through Seed's search to learn more about her mother, journalist Sheila Turner-Seed. Turner-Seed was a producer and collaborator with Capa on the series Images of Man, made in the 1970s, in which she interviewed ten legendary photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, and Cornell Capa. Seed will be joined in conversation by Pauline Vermare, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum.

A Photographic Memory will have its New York City premiere at DOC NYC on November 15, 2024. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer, Kirsten Johnson and Seed. Learn more here.

About the Film

A daughter attempts to piece together a portrait of her mother, an avant-garde journalist and a woman she never knew. Uncovering the vast archive Sheila Turner-Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, and Lisette Model, the film explores memory, legacy and stories left untold.

About the Speakers

Rachel Elizabeth Seed is a Brooklyn and Los Angeles-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography and writing. She is a 2022 Jewish Film Institute fellow, a 2021 California Film Institute fellow and Jewish Story Partners grantee, a 2020 Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Pictures, NYFA New York Women’s Film Fund fellow, and a 2019 Sundance Edit & Story Lab fellow and Sundance Documentary Fund recipient for her feature documentary, A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. Rachel’s work has also been supported by Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, the Maine Media Workshops, the Roy W. Dean grant, and IFP.

Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography was included in the International Center of Photography’s exhibit on Hurricane Sandy, Rising Waters, and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries including SACRED by Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Thomas Lennon. Rachel’s writing has been published by No Film School, the Sundance Institute, and Talkhouse and she is Executive Director / Co-founder of the Brooklyn Documentary Club, a thriving NYC-based filmmaker collective with 250+ members.

Pauline Vermare is the Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography, Brooklyn Museum. She was formerly the cultural director of Magnum Photos NY, and a curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Paris. Her recent exhibitions and publications include "I'm So Happy you Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now" and "Akihiko Okamura: The Memories of Others." She sits on the boards of the Saul Leiter Foundation and the Catherine Leroy Fund.

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