Parallel Lives

Filmmaker Frank Matter set out to find people who, like him, were born on June 8, 1964, but under completely different circumstances. Following their life stories, the film takes us on a moving and visually stunning journey through the last decades. The world has changed a lot during this time. What impact did this have on the individual? How are time and place intertwined with who we are and where we’re going? Little by little, the stories of the protagonists merge into a colorful and multi-layered fresco of our time. The film touches on the existential question of what it means to be human.

"How many “twins” do we have, born on the same day, in the same year, in other latitudes and different conditions that have determined or influenced their destinies? Frank Matter was born on 8 June 1964, an “ordinary Monday”: the Beatles were visiting Hong Kong for the first time, Malcom X was receiving death threats while cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was giving birth to the first baby of the “space age”. A little later, the Vietnam War would intensify and Nelson Mandela would be imprisoned... for life. Parallel Lives—whose title is inspired by the famous work by Plutarch—takes us to meet Melissa, Zukiska, Li and Michel whom the director filmed in the United States, South Africa and China. Interweaving their life stories with rich archive material and elements taken from his own biography, Matter composes a fascinating documentary fresco, which reveals the extent to which these intimate trajectories are part of the acceleration of change brought about by globalisation, even affecting the editing of the film itself, which was completed during the global lockdown last spring..."
(Emmanuel Chicon - Visions du Réel)