Wanda
This program is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series Archive Treasures.
In-person: Q&A with Elena Gorfinkel, author of BFI Classics: Wanda, moderated by Archive Research and Study Center Officer Maya Montañez Smukler. Book signing before the screening.
In 1970, Wanda screened at the Venice Film Festival as the sole U.S. entry winning the International Critics Prize. Barbara Loden, actor-turned-filmmaker, directed, produced and co-starred in the independent production, made for an estimated $100,000, in collaboration with Nicholas Proferes serving as cinematographer and editor. The feature was Loden’s directorial debut. Wanda follows Loden in a quiet and captivating portrayal of an apathetic young woman on a journey through a bleak and rural Pennsylvanian landscape. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 1971, Loden was clear about her approach to filmmaking: “I’ve got more movies in me, but they will have to be done my way. I’m not interested in entertaining people. I only want to do things that mean something to me, that I can say about a human being on film and then communicate that feeling to others.”
In her new book, Elena Gorfinkel draws on archival sources, including scripts, interviews, production records, oral history and previously unseen ephemera, to trace the film’s feminist legacies, and its lasting influence on contemporary filmmakers, artists and writers.
35mm, color, 105 min. Director/Screenwriter: Barbara Loden. With: Michael Higgins, Barbara Loden, Frank Jourdano.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a division of UCLA Library, and presents its public programs in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer, among other venues. For more information about the Archive, visit cinema.ucla.edu.
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