Wildwood, NJ (1994) dir. Carol Weaks Cassidy, Ruth Leitman

Magic, utopia, the fountain of youth—these are a few ways that beachgoers describe the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ, a loving snapshot of the South Jersey Shore from Ruth Leitman and Carol Weaks Cassidy. Shot on Super 8 with an all-woman crew, the film captures the nostalgic ambience of nights on the boardwalk: the neon lights of the amusement park rides, boardwalk misfits, the electricity of a summer fling. Leitman and Cassidy—both natives of nearby Philadelphia and summer visitors to Wildwood—also sought to spark deeper conversations with the young women they remembered from their teenage years. In Leitman’s words, they wanted to learn “what they had to say about themselves and the world, their life’s dreams and aspirations.”