About

THE STORY

Cast members wearing A.G.N.E.S. suits

Fast-Forward:
An Award-Winning Documentary That Helps You Change Your Life

FAST-FORWARD follows four millennials and their parents as they travel through time to meet their future selves. Wearing an MIT-produced “aging empathy suit” and working with professional make-up artists, they grapple with the realizations, conversations and mindset required to age successfully. Ultimately, the families learn they have more control over how they age than they thought.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Michael Eric Hurtig, Director

“If I knew now what I’ll know then, would I change anything?” The most common answer to this, an opening line in Fast-Forward, is a resounding “Yes!” For most, however, getting older is a reality out of their control. This film endeavors to show people that taking a pragmatic look into your family’s future is possible and can help you age more successfully.

“As we developed the film, in speaking to experts about the primary drivers of successful aging, we learned that intergenerational family dynamics play a key role. While we knew bringing millennials and boomers together to have “the conversation” would be an underlying dynamic of our film, we still needed something to jolt our cast into an exploration of their greatest aging fears and expectations. Using M.I.T.’s immersive A.G.N.E.S. aging suit as a starting point, we brought their futures to life.

We designed 360 degree experiences for our cast; effectively creating an aging boot-camp that galvanized and led them to work through tough issues together.

Every family’s aging story is different. In Fast-Forward, we hope to inspire viewers to embark on their own time travel experiment to explore how they – and their families – are set up to age together.”

A.G.N.E.S. Suit

FLX ENTERTAINMENT

In a media environment flooded by reality TV, our documentaries and series seek to explore the depths of the human psyche with style, using ethical production methodologies. FLX Entertainment is a platform agnostic media and entertainment corporation that invites audiences to discover the answer to the question: What are you made of?

For more information, visit www.flxentertainment.com.

Major funding for this program provided by:

The John A. Hartford Foundation, based in New York City, is a private, nonpartisan, national philanthropic organization dedicated to improving the care of older adults. The leader in the field of aging and health, the Foundation has three areas of emphasis: creating age-friendly health systems, supporting family caregivers, and improving serious illness and end-of-life care.

For more information, visit www.johnahartford.org.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area.

Visit Moore.org and follow @MooreFound.

CO-PRODUCTION PARTNER

Twin Cities PBS (TPT), the PBS affiliate for Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, is a prominent content producer for the national public television system. TPT’s most recent documentaries for PBS include Going to War, The Dictator’s Playbook, and When Whales Walked: Journeys in Deep Time. Other films include the Emmy Award-winning The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s, Peabody Award recipient Depression: Out of the Shadows, and 2012 Sundance Film Festival selection Slavery by Another Name. TPT also co-produced the classic feature documentary Hoop Dreams, a Peabody and Sundance Film Festival winner.

The amazing team at TPT is the presenting station for the Fast-Forward movie.

For more information, visit www.tpt.org.

PARTNER

Next Avenue is public media’s first and only national journalism service dedicated to America’s booming 50+ population. Its mission is to meet the needs and unleash the potential of older adults through the power of media. More than 70 million people have visited www.nextavenue.org since it launched in 2012 and millions more have connected with its content through a national network of media partners and nonprofit allies. Twin Cities PBS produces Next Avenue for the PBS system.

For more information, visit www.nextavenue.org.