The Sweetest Sound

With the intimacy and humor of a personal essay, Alan Berliner (MJFF 1998’s Nobody’s Business) dives headfirst inside the American name pool in search of the treasures and dangers hidden inside his own name. A film that starts out in search of identity slowly transforms into a meditation on mortality. Along the way, he confronts his parents about the origin of his name, his sister about the names she gave her children and visits the Jim Smith Society, The National Linda Convention, the streets of New York, The Holocaust name memorials, The Vietnam Memorial and the AIDS Quilt. He also stumbles upon some surprising news about name changes at Ellis Island. In the end Berliner leaves us with a greater sense of the power and magic embedded in a name, and how all of our identities are inescapably shaped by what we call ourselves. A film guaranteed to make you think twice about the who, the why and the where contained in every name, The Sweetest Sound has Berliner's inimitable filmmaking signature written all over it.