The Winter of the Beard - 2008

A beard growing documentary that is somehow not really about growing beards.

In the fall of 2005, two filmmakers invited six men across America to join them in an experiment. They would all stop shaving for six months. No trimming allowed. Each was provided a video camera and weekly interview questions to document his own experience. The resulting 600 hours of intimate footage revealed a group of men traversing the same rite of passage from disparate vantage points.

Throughout the process, the men told stories from their pasts, shared likes and dislikes, and confessed personal fears and aspirations. They laughed and cried, hid and came alive behind their beards.

The tireless taping captured bad days and good ones, and it is in this framework that the individual stories stand out and the beards fade into the background.

From a son dealing with his father's descent into Alzheimer's, to financial and marital struggles, to the birth of a child, The Winter of The Beard reveals the trials and tribulations of what it means to drastically alter one's appearance and otherwise go on living life.

Directed by: Jefferson Pitcher, Mike Schwartz