WHAT WE DREAM is a documentary series following sixteen young people across three interviews over seven years, from age ten through high school graduation in Boulder, Colorado. An intimate portrait of a generation finding their way through childhood, a pandemic and a rapidly changing world.
In 2018, I sat down with sixteen ten-year-olds in Boulder, Colorado and asked them about their dreams, their fears, and what they wished for most. I returned twice more. In 2022 they were finishing middle school. In 2025 they were graduating high school. All sixteen stayed. The result is an intimate, longitudinal portrait of a generation navigating childhood, a pandemic, adolescence, and a rapidly changing world, told entirely in their own words. WHAT WE DREAM asks the question we rarely ask young people seriously, and discovers that when you finally listen, the answers are extraordinary.
Nina Martinek is an Australian writer and director whose short films have screened at international festivals including Sundance, LA Shorts, Mannheim-Heidelberg, Edinburgh, Vienna, the Toronto Women’s Film Festival, and the Brooklyn Art Museum. An alumna of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film Program, she has worked extensively as a documentary filmmaker in Africa for UNICEF, and as a video producer and journalist for Reuters and The New York Times.
Nina's debut narrative feature, Happy Birthday Charlie, is now streaming. She has written multiple screenplays for international productions including "Maxine", is currently editing a short film Happiness Is and a longitudinal documentary titled What We Dream.
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