A Photographic Memory

Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards

A Photographic Memory is an intimate portrait of filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s trailblazing mother, Sheila Turner Seed—a vibrant and pioneering journalist, photographer, and filmmaker, who died suddenly and tragically when her daughter was just eighteen months old. Uncovering the vast archive Turner Seed produced—including lost interviews with iconic photographers Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Lisette Model, and Gordon Parks—Seed attempts to build a posthumous relationship with her mother through her interviews, photographs, journals, and films, as well as 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. 

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Cinematographer
  • Rachel Elizabeth Seed
  • Joseph Michael Lopez
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 87 mins
Source
  • Zeitgeist Films

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or need accommodations to attend this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-1412 (Wed–Sun, 11 AM–7 PM) as soon as you can. Advance notice helps us fulfill your request.

Learn more about accessibility services at BAMPFA.