Premieres Monday, Jan. 26, 2026 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream with KPBS+ / Encores Thursday, Jan. 29 at 6:30 a.m. on KPBS 2 and Saturday, Jan. 31 at 9 a.m. on KPBS 2
“Vivien’s Wild Ride,” the directorial debut from sound and picture editor Vivien Hillgrove, will premiere on INDEPENDENT LENS. After an acclaimed career in cinema, Hillgrove begins to lose her sight, forcing her to reexamine her past and to reinvent herself and her art in this unconventional memoir.
Woven with a look back at the earthshaking ’70s and ’80s Bay Area narrative film scene and the art of film editing, “Vivien’s Wild Ride” is a deeply personal exploration of Hillgrove’s past traumas and her new reality as an artist learning to live with a disability. The film captures a story of transformation on many levels, reimagining what it means to see and to belong through acts of creation, connection, and caring, not just biology.
At 78 years old, Hillgrove reflects on a career working alongside many filmmaking greats: Francis Coppola, Philip Kaufman, Milos Forman, Walter Murch, and celebrated documentary filmmakers Lourdes Portillo and Deann Borshay Liem. But as her eyesight, which she has depended on for her craft, begins to deteriorate, she navigates a transition to a new way of being and seeing.
Taking the helm as director for the first time in this documentary feature, Hillgrove begins to confront the shame and loneliness she felt earlier in her life—having relinquished her baby as an unwed teenage mother.
Now, diagnosed with macular degeneration, she faces a new feeling of isolation and loss. Supported by her longtime partner, Karen Brocco, Hillgrove works to uncover the past, recalling and summoning the resilience she found as a young woman, while also finding solace living on a quiet farm and with their garden sanctuary, Mom’s Head Gardens.
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Vivien's Wild Ride is on Facebook / Instagram / film website
Credits: Vivien Hillgrove, Director/Producer. Producers: Vivien Hillgrove, Deann Borshay Liem, Jessica Anthony, Janet Dole, Dawn Valadez, Executive Producers: Carrie Lozano, Lois Vossen, Royd Chung, Lisa Kleiner Chanoff, Bonni Cohen and Megan Gelstein
