Nobody noticed when Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above a North London mall in 2003. Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, surrounded by Christmas presents she had been wrapping, and with the TV still on.
Director Carol Morley, determined to find out more about Joyce’s life, spent five years tracking down those who knew her by placing adverts in newspapers, on black cabs and on the internet.
Interweaving interviews with imagined scenes from Joyce’s life (played brilliantly by Zawe Ashton) Dreams of a Life is an imaginative, powerful, multi-layered quest. What emerges is not only a portrait of Joyce — a charismatic, capable and ambitious young woman born of Indian-Caribbean parents, who harboured dreams of a singing career — but also of London life in the ’80s, its society, music and nightlife. It is a film about urban living, contemporary alienation and how, like Joyce, we are all different things to different people.
Nominated for The Grierson Award for Best Documentary at London Film Festival 2011.
