Lizzie Borden: Working Girls
March 29, 2024
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM America/Chicago
Location
Gene Siskel Film Center, Theatre 1
Address
164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL 60601
Calendar
Download iCal FileJoin GWS for a screening of the film "Working Girls," followed by a discussion with the filmmaker Lizzie Borden.
About the Film: In her groundbreaking third feature, Lizzie Borden looks at gender, race, and labor relations in a Manhattan brothel. Inspired by the experiences of sex workers Borden met while making Born in Flames, Working Girls follows the rhythms of a day-in-the life of Molly (Louise Smith), an artist who turns to sex work to fund her photography practice (images provided by the artist Nan Goldin). Molly and her colleagues greet clients in the brothel’s pastel-hued reception, change sheets, answer the phone, and log their earnings in a ledger overseen by their overpaid boss, paralleling women’s labor of all kinds—from domestic to the office.
About the Filmmaker: Lizzie Borden is a writer, director, editor, and script consultant. Her 1983 film Born in Flames, named one of “The 50 Most Important Independent Films” by Filmmaker Magazine, has been shown at countless festivals and theaters around the world. It has been taught and written about extensively since its 1983 premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2016, when the film was restored by Anthology Film Archives, New Yorker critic Richard Brody called it “a feminist masterpiece.” Borden also wrote, directed, and produced the controversial independent fiction film Working Girls, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight, won a US Dramatic Special Jury Recognition at the Sundance Film Festival, and was restored by the Criterion Collection in 2021. Borden’s long-unseen 1976 film Regrouping was restored by Anthology Film Archives in 2023.
Accessibility: The Film Center is ADA accessible. Theaters are equipped with hearing-loops. CATE (Conversations at the Edge) events are presented with real-time captions (CART). For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or email cate@saic.edu.
Co-sponsors: Presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute, the Gene Siskel Film Center; and University of Illinois Chicago’s (UIC) College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts.
Tickets: This film screening is free for UIC students. Tickets will be available starting Sunday, March 24, at the Gene Siskel Film Center box office with a valid school ID - limit one free ticket per ID.
$13 General public
$8 Students
$6.50 Film Center members
Date posted
Feb 1, 2024
Date updated
Feb 9, 2024