NewEnglandFilm.com

I Covered My Eyes investigates childhood notions of threat and safety by juxtaposing TV news broadcasts of tragic world events with home movie footage. The project was first conceived after seeing the televised images broadcast live on September 11 2001, and wondering what children must be feeling upon witnessing this horrific act within our own borders.

Soon after, director Paul Turano wrote a list of the tragic events he distinctly remembered witnessing on TV as a child in the 1970s and early 1980s. By adopting a child’s perspective, the film evokes his experience of learning about the outside world through news broadcasts, and the accompanying realization of threatened safety from forces outside his immediate family and community. As the sense of vulnerability grows throughout the film from abstract threats to more immediate and actual ones, the seemingly innocent and idyllic world of his childhood becomes overshadowed by an increasing awareness of its fragility and precariousness.