Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Girlfriends (1978) Directed by Claudia Weill

Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Girlfriends, a female-led bildungsroman directed by Claudia Weill, follows Susan, a twenty-something photographer living in NYC whose self-reliance is tested when her best friend and roommate, Anne, announces that she’s getting married. While Anne retreats into Upstate domesticity, Susan must negotiate the demands of friendship and romance, commerce and art, Judaism and bohemianism on an uneven path toward womanhood. With its rough-hewn visual style and intimate depiction of young people adrift, Girlfriends is a forerunner to mumblecore, as well as a textured document of a bygone Manhattan where lofts were still affordable and gallery owners only mildly pretentious. Born in New York City to Jewish parents, Claudia Weill began her film career in television and documentaries before going on to direct feature films. Girlfriends (1978), her first feature, won numerous awards at film festivals and garnered widespread critical praise. Its success paved the way for a second feature, It’s My Turn (1980), along with a string of television directing jobs on series like Thirtysomething (1987), My So-Called Life (1994) and Girls (2013).

Free with $5 suggested donation.