Waking up in a dream

Waking Up in a Dream is a cinematic meditation on time, memory, spirituality, and the sacred everyday. Filmed over two years throughout Brooklyn, New York, the experimental documentary presents the modern world as a literal and spiritual dreamscape of real people reflecting on their lives with radical honesty and presence.Unfolding as a conversation between souls, we meet a barber recalling cherished childhood memories in Trinidad, a Rastafarian channeling ancient rhythms of good and evil, a boy wondering about karma and loneliness, a Buddhist monk examining the nature of thought itself, a recovering addict detailing his past as a fading dream, and a mother reflecting on the body she once dreamed of escaping, among others.These are not case studies or issue-driven portraits, but rather mirrors to our human condition. They are relationships and connections that have been cultivated over a decade of the filmmakers calling Brooklyn home. The result is an unfolding conversation between souls sharing philosophies, contradictions, doubts, and beliefs. What unites them is a shared search for meaning beyond survival. For some, this spirituality is expressed through religion. For others, it lives in memory, family, discipline, ritual, creation, and the ongoing tension between control and surrender.This black-and-white dreamscape is woven together by a simple coming-of-age story. Su, an 8-year-old girl, journeys to scatter her grandmother’s ashes at the beach of her earliest memory. Her familiar presence becomes a conduit for the audience to reflect, remember, grow, and transform. The voice of Eka, Su's grandmother, guides us between the worlds of narrative and documentary, past and present, personal and universal—echoing the ancient duality of chronos (measured time) and kairos (sacred time, the eternal now). Her timeless wisdom reminds us that time is not a currency to be lost or gained, but something we feel, resist, and live in at every moment.Waking Up in a Dream is a portrait of a city beyond the headlines and viral clips. It is a story not about people, but one told through them—as spiritual archive, as collective unconscious, as living memory—that asks: what does it mean to be fully awake in your life?INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
2021 Rooftop Films Filmmakers Fund (Camera Grant)
2021 Thessaloniki Int’l Film Festival (Lab)
2022 HamptonsFilm (Lab)
2022 Gotham (Project Market)
2024 International Documentary Association (Fiscal Sponsorship)

Waking up (for the first time)

waking up (for the first time) is an audiovisual experiment that reconsiders footage of a film-in-progress as a place-based, multiscreen installation. In dreamlike tableaus of everyday city life, Brooklyn-based artists explore practices of spirituality and reflect on meaning-making with reverence for the quotidian observations that make up our ordinary lives.presented by: jamil mcginnis & pat heywood
images: peter hou
music: DOEQUO
sound recording: ej markland
sound mixing: isaac matusRockaway Film Festival (August 2024)
festival directors: courtney muller & sam fleischner
technical director: jorge morilloFilmmaker Magazine
TimeOut
Indiewire

team

Jamil and Pat co-founded Seneca Village Pictures in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as a space to explore the intersection of life and cinema. Their work has screened at institutions and festivals including the Museum of Modern Art, Film at Lincoln Center, Walker Arts Center, Locarno Film Festival, BFI, Telluride, and Clermont-Ferrand, where their short film Gramercy won the 2021 Labo Competition Grand Prix.Jamil’s short as time passes premiered at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, with subsequent screenings at the New York Film Festival, MoMA PS1, and BAM Film. He also co-founded KNOW Publishing with Max Friedman. Jamil grew up across Turkey, Germany, and the U.S. Pat’s recent short Tough Love, a meditation on grief after the loss of his grandmother, premiered in the 2024 IDFA Competition for Documentary Short. Originally from Fall River, Massachusetts, he is passionate about meditation, yoga, and cycling, and studies Buddhism, consciousness, and trauma healing.

Peter Hou (b. Queens, NY) is a Taiwanese cinematographer best known for his poetic imagery and intimate, observational approach. His sensibilities have been greatly shaped by embracing nature’s ebbs and flows. Allowing space to respond and adapt to surrounding environments. His photography continues to explore the beauty of impermanence and the transient relationship between time and memory.

E.J. Markland is a sound engineer, mixer, recorder, and musician based in NYC, focusing on film, corporate, and commercial sound production. Projects featuring his work include those for A24, HISTORY Channel, Dior, Art21, Billboard, and various others.

Yoko Kohmoto (she/her) is a producer and writer based in New York City. Her work has been recognized by Vimeo Staff Pick and featured at Frameline, the American Black Film Festival, and CAAMFest. She is committed to building community, ensuring safety on set, and uplifting marginalized voices. In 2024, she launched an initiative to support women and nonbinary artists of color in the film industry. She holds an MFA in Creative Producing and currently works as a consultant with The Gotham.

Petrus is a South African filmmaker and co-founder of Vanishing Elephant, a production company committed to telling meaningful stories. His short films have screened at Locarno, SXSW, New Directors/New Films, and the New York Film Festival, and have been distributed by platforms like MUBI, Topic, and Canal+ Poland. He has produced work across South Africa, Tanzania, and the U.S., including a Netflix episode for African Folktales Reimagined. His projects have received support from SFFILM, the Atlas Workshops, and the Red Sea Souk, and he was selected for the 2024 DEENTAL program at Cannes.

Stephanie Cheng is a filmmaker, photographer and actor based between New York and Beijing. Having grown up in China before spending most of her formative years in the US, her hybrid upbringing has strongly influenced and holistically informed her creative outlook and ethos by always approaching stories from varied motivations and origins of inspiration. She co-founded Good Behavior, a production company that focuses on genre-bending narratives by BIPOC storytellers and artists, and her works have screened at Palm Springs International ShortFest, San Diego International Film Festival and others. Stephanie received her B.F.A. in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and completed her Master’s in Visual, Museum, and Material Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

Joshua Sobel has produced more than a dozen feature films. He recently executive produced Phil Tippett’s stop-motion film MAD GOD (distributed by Shudder), No Nos Moverán (We Shall Not Be Moved), which won Best Feature and Audience Award at the 2024 Guanajuato International Film Festival, and The Python Hunter, which won the 2025 SXSW Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature. His previous credits include Are We Not Cats (Venice Film Festival, 2016) and Huachicolero (The Gasoline Thieves), which won Best New Director at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

Caleb Negassa is a producer with a wide-ranging portfolio of award-winning films in the U.S. and abroad, including At Little Wheelie 3D Ato and Blind Stitch. He has contributed to both independent film and television, including development and production roles on The Sex Lives of College Girls and HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant. His work reflects a commitment to bold storytelling across formats and geographies.

Awakenings

support

Waking Up in a Dream is an ongoing project currently in production.We are fiscally sponsored by the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization IDA (Independent Documentary Association).Tax deductible donations can be made here: IDA FISCAL SPONSORSHIPIf you would like to learn more or request materials, we're here.