Tell Me a Riddle
Lee Grant / US, 1980 / 124 min.
The first major American feature film written, produced and directed entirely by women. An elderly couple set out on a pilgrimage to visit their family members knowing full well that one of them doesn’t have long to live.
Elderly Jewish couple David and Eva, who once participated in the Russian Revolution, are told Eva has terminal cancer. They decide to visit their children and grandchildren around the US, but David would prefer to keep Eva's diagnosis a secret. During their pilgrimage, they discover they long neglected certain parts of themselves whilst raising their children.
Pre-film
The Stronger (1976, 30') was the prelude to Lee Grant's career as a feature film and documentary director. For this debut, Grant chose August Strindberg's one-act play of the same name as a starting point, with gifted actresses Susan Strasberg and Dolores Dorn as each other's opposites. One talks nonstop, the other remains silent. Who is the stronger? 2022 restoration by The Academy Film Archive, The Film Foundation.
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Lee Grant
Production year
1980
Country
US
Original title
Tell Me a Riddle
Length
124 min.
Language
English
Subtitles
NONE
Format
DCP
Part of
Liberating Hollywood
In its Liberating Hollywood programme, Eye is screening works by female directors working in the US in the 1970s. Pioneers of the second-wave feminist era, their work has seldom or never been screened in the Netherlands. Highlights of the programme are Wanda (Barbara Loden) and Girlfriends (Claudia Weill), the inspiration for Lena Dunham’s series Girls.
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