By Amellia Fowler

UW–Madison’s Douglas Rosenberg, a professor in the School of Education’s Art Department, was recently featured in an article from the Marin Independent Journal, “Marin native’s new film explores the importance of community later in life,” about his film, “The Sea.”

The film will be shown at the 2026 San Francisco Dance Film Festival on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 11 a.m. at the Brava Theatre. The festival is presenting over 80 films in its 17th year, offering audiences around the world a wide view of dance in its varied forms.

Rosenberg’s black-and white-feature film explores themes of aging, intimacy, and camaraderie among older men and is heavily inspired by the works of Ingmar Bergman.

Discussing how “The Sea” came together, Rosenberg recounts that it emerged from a group of people who came together to workshop ideas for the film.

“The hope was that we would be able to make a film from this workshop about masculinity,” Rosenberg said, “thinking about how men comport themselves as they get older, thinking about how so little really gets discussed in communities of men, all sorts of things.”

From that workshop, the film’s choreography took shape.

“The things that I brought to that group were very much about the things that I was remembering from my childhood, the way you’d play around with your male friends, and the way you’d lean on each other without any sense of shame,” Rosenberg said.

“The Sea” was filmed entirely on location along the Baltic Sea and featured a cast of predominantly untrained male performers from Fårö, all age 60 or older. 

“Even though they lived on this very small island, they didn’t all know each other,” Rosenberg said. “Many of them had come to a point in life where they had worked very hard their whole life. They had raised children and families and had wives, etc.”

Exploring how life’s experiences leave their mark, the film expresses these ideas through movement and the passage of time.

“Then somebody’s wife died, or there was a child who died, or something happened to shake everything in their life. Like all of us, that happens, but they were so open about those things in the workshop process. Everybody’s ability to speak openly really bonded the group together,” Rosenberg said. 

Read the full Marin Independent Journal article.