Patti Smith: Dream of Life

Punk rock legend, beat poet, artist, mother, daughter, friend. For eleven years, photographer Steven Sebring accompanied the Goddess of Punk, Patti Smith, with his 16 mm camera.

Sometimes he shows her in her home in Detroit, in carefully arranged still lifes; at other times he films her on the move. Then there are trains, hotels, backstage with her son, with bandmates warming up in the dressing room, or on stage. Patti in her parents’ garden, at the graves of revered poets such as William Blake, Gregory Corso and Arthur Rimbaud, by the sea or in the streets of Rome. She herself recounts stories from her life, of moments of happiness, loss and utopian dreams. “A worker, a mother, an artist, a human being” – a deeply personal portrait.