This Saturday at 2:00pm I will be giving a talk about underappreciated female directors (a timely topic in light of Ava DuVernay’s Oscar snub) at the Wilmette
Public Library. Here is the description I wrote about the event for the Library’s “Off the Shelf” Newsletter:

Female directors only account for 3% of all the movies that have been made. Their work has often consequently been overlooked or downplayed in many official film histories. Yet a close scrutiny of the history of cinema reveals that women — from the silent era through today, in every national cinema around the world — have not only been present in all of the major historical movements but have been responsible for making significant contributions to them.

This talk will highlight the work of female directors from Germany in the Weimar era (Leontine Sagan’s Madchen in Uniform), classic Hollywood cinema (Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance), independent American film (Ida Lupino‘s The Hitch-Hiker), the French New Wave (Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7), the Danish “Dogme 95” movement (Lone Scherfig’s Italian for Beginners) and more.

Wilmette Public Library 
1242 Wilmette Ave.
Wilmette, Illinois 60091
847-256-5025

Hope to see you there!

In other news, at Time Out Chicago I discuss the Siskel Center’s ongoing 3-D series “Dial 3 for 3-D!!!” with special shout-outs to Hitchcock and Godard: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/blog/what-to-see-at-the-dial-3-for-3-d-series-at-the-siskel-center

I also have reviews of J.B.L. Noel’s mesmerizing 1924 documentary The Epic of Everest and an avant-garde shorts program featuring work by Luis Bunuel, Jean Vigo and Nobuhiko Ôbayashi at Cine-File: http://cine-file.info/list-archive/2015/JAN-15-3.html