Dee-Dee, a Brooklyn barber, covers his wall with magazine pinups of women. He wishes that real women could look more like the images on his “wall of beauty.” However, when Dee-Dee is introduced to the art of photo-retouching, his perceptions of beauty are called into question.

Wet Dreams and False Images is a Sundance award-winning documentary film that uses humor to raise serious questions about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection.

You can buy or rent the full 12-minute version of this film at New Day Films.

Filmmaker Jesse Epstein

Jesse Epstein received an M.A. in documentary film and gender studies from New York University. She has directed and produced documentary projects both nationally and internationally. Her public service announcement about body image has been shown in the Media That Matters Film Festival in conjunction with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and on the Oxygen Media Channel. She is also the founder of a youth video program in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and an instructor for Reel Stories, Sundance Institute’s Youth Documentary Workshop.

Jesse recently received a grant from the Chicken and Egg Fund to expand Wet Dreams and False Images into a one-hour film.