Economic turmoil is changing people’s everyday lives right now. Personally, I know three immediate friends who have fallen out of well-paid middle-class jobs and are currently struggling to make even a survival income.

California Dreaming
This full-length documentary film, “California Dreaming”, is a sobering look at how people’s lives have turned upside-down in California during this latest economic recession. Note that few of the people featured would fit into anyone’s stereotype of a potential  “down-and-out”.

Director Bregtje Van Der Haak speaks to individuals and families who are just trying to survive. Whether they be once successful middle-class folk, out-of-work blue-collar tradesmen or ex-prisoners, they all willingly share their stories on how they fell out of the system and what they do to keep going.

The documentary is set against a background of US State California facing bankruptcy and Los Angeles city struggling with its cashflow.

Optimism emerges in the film, but the message is clear that life is changing irreversibly and that new ways of living are required merely to survive.