Magical Universe

Al Carbee is an artist living in Saco, a town in Maine. He is eighty years old and has cut his ties with the world. He works with Barbie dolls at home. He builds scenes with them, photographs them and makes collages. His work moves between collage, photography, diorama and portrait. The director Jeremy Workman found him while making a short film. An odd friendship grew between the two of them afterwards. Carbee starts writing him long typed letters. He sends video letters recorded straight to camera as well. In time Workman becomes his main link to the world outside. The documentary was shot over a span of ten years. Over that period the work of Carbee begins to draw attention. The film does not put him on display as an oddity. It is about how making things keeps a life standing. Friendship sits at the centre of the account too. Al Carbee shows his own world in the eighty minute documentary. It is an American production Jeremy Workman finished in 2014.