The Sweetest Sound

An experimental documentary essay on the power, meaning, and mystery of people's names.

Film Signature Image
Series
POV
Premiere Date
June 26, 2001
Length
60 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
Producer

Alan Berliner

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The Film

Everyone has a name — names are the opening words to our life stories. With intimacy, humor, and his own inimitable style, filmmaker Alan Berliner dives headfirst into the American name pool in search of the treasures and traps hidden in names — especially his own. In confronting the "same name syndrome" and his yearning to be unique, The Sweetest Sound starts out as a search for identity, and slowly transforms into a meditation on mortality, leaving a keen sense of the power and mystery embedded in every name.

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