A Photographic Memory is an intimate, genre-bending portrait of a daughter’s attempt to piece together a picture of her mother, an avant-garde journalist she never knew.
The film explores the vast archive produced by Sheila Turner Seed, including lost interviews with iconic photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, Cecil Beaton, Bruce Davidson, Lisette Model, and others, to pursue questions of memory, legacy, and the stories left untold.
Following the film, join director Rachel Elizabeth Seed for a Q&A discussing the creation of her debut feature.
Bios
Rachel Elizabeth Seed (@soignesong) is an LA-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography, and writing. Her debut feature film, A Photographic Memory, is a New York Times Critic’s Pick and was called “one of the best docs of the year” by RogerEbert.com. It was awarded a 2025 Truer Than Fiction Spirit Award and was nominated for a 2025 Cinema Eye Honors Award.
Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, Seed’s photography has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries including Sacred, by Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Thomas Lennon. Rachel is co-founder and executive director of the Brooklyn Documentary Club, an NYC film collective with more than 300 members.
