![[Desire: Julie’s Mother 1]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240475100-77b0e196e7a138cf22ae9fba1d0f66e0922f942cae07d311975fba1ed4df45fc-d_295x166-228x160.png)
Videomaker Julie Gustafson and her teenaged subject/collaborator Cassandra Swaing show Julie’s mother footage from the documentary Desire, featuring Cassandra (as well as Cassandra’s own videos), in which Julie discusses her own life, including her marriage and her abortions.
![[Pursuit of Happiness: Molly Rush]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240474244-f017f196e9777c16e5e6a49d33829ef1643d0caf31eabfc2268fc248fce85fd6-d_295x166-228x160.png)
Raw footage of an interview with activist Molly Rush for the video Pursuit of Happiness, produced and directed by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly.
![[Giving Birth: Margaret Mead 2]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240471375-b1cd33ff67d0b04b251384b127df09f096431f108a849341ce9b0c2cdaaaf839-d_295x166-228x160.png)
An interview with cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead for the documentary Giving Birth: Four Portraits, directed by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly.
![[The Pursuit of Happiness: Ida May Petsock and George Petsock]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240471209-9f4e7c1866d80eb388fdd7fdc2ed11852891ccf78480d9c4924d086b76ae8950-d_295x166-228x160.png)
An interview conducted at the home of elderly couple Ida May Petsock and George Petsock for the documentary The Pursuit of Happiness, directed by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly. George is a superintendent of prisons in Pittsburgh, PA, and his career has often interfered with his home life, including frequent moves around the state.
![[Casting the First Stone: Anti-abortion Demonstration]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240471235-3e94fdb36da208f76acdfa74b24eb0e2fbb291c95267a86da07c60e4556666fa-d_295x166-228x160.png)
Footage taken at an anti-abortion demonstration for the documentary Casting the First Stone, directed by Julie Gustafson. Includes an interview with Frances Sheehan and a press conference with Randall Terry.
![[Politics of Intimacy: Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey 2]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240473069-323686cc9ad3e9c0b7e2c89761327d4d2fd242487d62c8b31b2ad0359619ccd8-d_295x166-228x160.png)
Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey is a psychiatrist and the author of The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality. In this tape, she is interviewed by videomaker Julie Gustafson for the documentary THE POLITICS OF INTIMACY.
![[Politics of Intimacy: Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey 1]](https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1240470117-23ae816d0140a9b7728c72a4f2a0bc2d2df6fa2b6324c1502c21abf87d2b3985-d_295x166-228x160.png)
Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey is a psychiatrist and the author of The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality. In this tape, she is interviewed by videomaker Julie Gustafson for her documentary THE POLITICS OF INTIMACY.
Independent videomaker, Julie Gustafson, invites a diverse group of teenage girls from New Orleans to make autobiographical videos exploring their developing sexuality and identity. An unprecedented long-term collaboration, DESIRE weaves together the girls’ video work, the stories of their changing lives, as well as the family, social and economic contexts in which their desires and choices are shaped.
The film begins in a primarily African-American housing project named ‘Desire’ and follows the lives of teenagers across diverse racial, political, class, and cultural backgrounds. Cassandra, Kimeca, Tracy, Peggy, and Tiffinie collaborate to tell their own stories of struggle and wrestling with questions of sexual identity, body image, family, future plans, and the pressures of finding one’s way in the world. As the film unfolds over the next five years, DESIRE honors each of the young women’s challenges and achievements, making clear that their ‘choices’ are linked not just to hopes and dreams, but to actual educational and economic opportunity– too often tinged with the racial disadvantage. In one remarkable scene, Kimeca, turns the camera on Gustafson, prompting her to share her own story of teenage pregnancy and the difficult decisions she made about abortion.
As John Anderson from Variety said: “Top-flight editing and a pace that never falters help “Desire” movingly tell the stories of its five subjects.” Justin Lane Briggs of The New School concurs: “The films the girls make themselves are shockingly honest and revealing…The result is a poignant and moving work, which stirs up a massive cloud of thoughts and issues without ever settling on one side of them… Cassandra and Tiffanie will haunt your dreams.