A Photographic Memory

Director: Rachel Elizabeth Seed

Film Info

  • Film Format: DCP & MP4
  • Origin: USA
  • Runtime: 85 mins
  • Language: In English

Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards and a New York Times Critic’s Pick, A Photographic Memory is an intimate, genre-bending portrait of the filmmaker’s trailblazing mother, Sheila Turner Seed – a vibrant and pioneering journalist, photographer, and filmmaker, who died suddenly and tragically when Rachel was just 18 months old. Uncovering the vast archive Turner Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Cecil Beaton, Lisette Model, and Gordon Parks, and others, Rachel attempts to build a posthumous relationship with her mother through her interviews, photographs, journals, films, and the stories of those who remember her. The result is an unlikely mother-daughter conversation that evades time and space, exploring universal themes of memory, loss, and legacy. 

A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY is a Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber and opened in theaters June 2025 (see playdates below). To book this film please contact Nancy Gerstman or Emily Russo.

A press kit, trailer, stills, jpegs of the poster and social media assets are available to download from our Exhibition DropBox. (Please note: when you click on any item to download you can ignore the login request and click on "Continue to download only.")

 

Rachel Elizabeth Seed

Originally from London, Rachel Elizabeth Seed 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. Rachel’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Pictures, NYFA, Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, the Jewish Film Institute, Jewish Story Partners, and the IFP/Gotham Labs, among others. Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her 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, a thriving NYC film collective with more than 300 members.

Playdates

Venue City State Date
New Plaza Cinema New York NY JULY 11-13!
BAMPFA (Pacific Film Archive) Berkeley CA JUNE 28 & JULY 20 ONLY!
Cinema Arts Center Huntington NY JULY 24 ONLY!
The Avon Stamford CT AUG 6 ONLY!
The Avalon Washington DC AUG 6 ONLY!
Art Theater of Long Beach Long Beach CA AUG 16 & 17 ONLY!
Oxnard Film Society Oxnard CA AUG 18 ONLY!
The Guild Cinema Albuquerque NM AUG 19-21 ONLY!
CCA Santa Fe Santa Fe NM AUG 22-28 ONLY!
Taos Center for the Arts Taos NM OPENS AUG 24!
Michigan Theater Ann Arbor MI SEPT 12 - 14 ONLY!