Narrated by Val Cole
Vivian Maier is unattractive, too tall, has big feet and a strange accent. She is often unable to read social situations. She struggles to keep a job as a nanny, but finally she has some success working for a family on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, taking care of a little girl named Joan McMillan. She begins to like and trust Joan, and for the first time in her life, she finds a real connection. Vivian is taking pictures in the city of New York which gives her a growing sense of control over her life and a new way of seeing.
When she is asked to go on a family trip to Los Angeles with Mrs. McMillan, Joan and her cousin Natalie, she decides to accept the invitation as an opportunity to expand her portfolio. They will travel across America, to the American plains, the wild west, up to Vancouver, Canada, and down the California coast. As she learns more about the McMillan family, she has flashbacks about her own unstable family life and worries about the legacy of mental illness. The challenges of travelling with her employer bring Vivian’s conflicts to a head. She feels the need to choose which version of herself she really wants. Artist or nanny? Abandoning Joan and her family at a hotel in L.A., she disappears from the McMillan’s lives forever. With the help of money from her savings, Vivian goes back to New York and takes the best pictures of her life. It’s 1953 and she’s twenty-eight years old.
WILDsound Writing Festival 