Jewel box for a dream
Ludovic Grden, Isabelle Casano
2008 - 52 min - DV Cam - Couleur

On June 15th 1957, during the Oklahoma semi-centennial celebration, the city of Tulsa held a contest where participants were asked to guess what the city?s population would be fifty years later, in 2007.
The winner of the contest was to receive a brand new 1957 gold Belvedere Plymouth buried in a sealed capsule downtown, to be dug up a half-century later. According to the contest organizers, this jewel of the American automobile industry was the perfect symbol of 1957 civilization for future generations.
On June 15th 2007, exactly on schedule, the car and all the artefacts it contained, were unveiled in broad daylight amid thousands of curiosity seekers who came from all over the world for the occasion. The list of population estimates stored on a roll of microfilm somewhere within the capsule would eventually determine the winner.
More than just a car, was the Belvedere rather a symbol of a long-gone era, captured and buried in the hopes of preserving a fading American dream?