In 1939, Harvard University received an award from the William T. Grant Foundation to study what made young men successful and healthy. The study has lasted over seventy years and has created a rich database that has served as a resource for over 150 scholars and scientists. This documentary film will share the findings of this seminal study with a broader audience. In 2015 the Foundation awarded Cohan an officers’ discretionary grant, which supported costs associated with research and filming the interviews with former and current study directors George Vaillant and Robert Waldinger, as well as several of the study participants who are still alive and in their nineties. Funds from this matching grant will primarily support the costs associated with editing the existing footage into a compelling narrative that will communicate the study’s findings in a nuanced and accessible way.
This grant will provide continued support for the production of a documentary that chronicles the last years of the participants of the Grant Study of Adult Development.
