Closer to the Dream, a documentary film that projects Obama election excitement, by Tequila Minsky

[Hervé Cohen & Guetty Felin]

New York-raised Guetty Felin is an ex-pat filmmaker with a French filmmaker husband and teenage sons whose recent rumblings of feelings to return back to the U.S. were reinforced by a new face on the political front offering some change in the landscape.

These are some of the forces that propelled Felin and her husband Herve Cohen to make the documentary film-their first joint production- Closer to the Dream, an electoral roadtrip/portrait of Americans enthusiastically supporting or at times just familiarizing themselves with then primary candidate Obama.

A March 2008 primary in Texas was looming and sensing how historical this election would be, Felin and Cohen and sons-ages 11 and 15-on their February winter vacation join the Texas primary effort to campaign for Obama. “We wanted to do something about the movement,” husband Cohen said. Their French-raised bilingual sons are fresh on the scene, ‘historically challenged,’ but are engaged in the process.

The initial trip with the children was followed by a second longer trip that takes us to Indiana, Illinois, Washington DC, North Carolina, Florida, and Oregon and introduces the viewer to a wide swath of Americans from many walks of life.

We meet a pastor in a barber chair, a vet holding an Obama sign along a busy thoroughfare, an Obama tee-shirt vendor (and Katrina refugee). We meet recent college grads, a street bucket drummer, and a housing organizer. Along the way, we campaign with a bi-racial son and his white mother.

There are the seemingly unlikely supporters–tattooed young men from Oregon, members of a Florida Jewish congregation, and even an avowed Republican. This film gives us an eye-opening look at Obama’s America from the streets and caucus halls, to huge public rallies to a small town community center and a synagogue.

In Closer to the Dream, the excitement surrounding the Texas primary effort-though he lost the primary, he won the caucus’ and in the end had more delegates than Clinton-is echoed many times while “we’re on the road”, meeting America, white and black, first time voters and political activists. It’s a refreshing look at our country.

French co-director Cohen, an American outsider, observed, “I was surprised to discover an America I never though would exist. People who dared to have high ideals and big levels of hope, being fed up with cynicism and low politics and trying to rise above.” To a certain degree, we all share in this revelation as this film paints a fresh portrait of Americans, frequently looking for politics that resonate and often those clamoring for change.

The filmmakers cut a one-hour version for French TV. Last week, New Yorkers were lucky to see the still-in-progress longer sneak preview at the new Harlem film venue–Maysles Cinema–Lenox between 127th St. and 128th St. as part of the Doc Watchers film series. Stay tuned for the finished film with an epilogue, hopefully, about the states won by President Obama.