A permanent history of women filmmakers: Dorothy Arzner

Retrospective of a pioneer, a screenwriter, an editor, one of first female filmmakers in a Hollywood studio, the first woman to shoot a talkie, incorporated into the Director's Guild of America, inventor of the microphone boom. Feminism, homosexuality, male domination… the themes of her films are surprisingly modern and powerful.

Retrospective made possible thanks to UCLA, Library of Congress, Warner Bros, British Film Institute
               

The Dorothy Arzner retrospective presented at the Lumière festival 2016 is supported by Chopard

Anybody’s Woman (1930, 1h20)
An alcoholic lawyer finds himself married to one of his clients despite himself... The first film to take up the funny theme of the surprise wedding due to alcohol, and the first talkie of Clara Bow.
Institut Lumière Thu 13 at 2:30pm 

Working Girls (1931, 1h20)
Two sisters from Indiana move to New York, determined to make a career and to fall in love... A bold treatise on working and sentimental lives of young Americans of the 1930s.
Institut Lumière Sat 15 at 10am

Merrily We Go to Hell (1932, 1h18)
Joan (Sylvia Sidney) decides to marry Jerry (Fredric March), despite his reputation as a philandering, penniless drunkard... The tragicomic description of a modern but disastrous marriage. One of the biggest successes of Dorothy Arzner.
Institut Lumière Tue 11 at 11:30am

Christopher Strong (1933, 1h18)
An aviator having never known love (Katharine Hepburn) is presented with a faithful husband as part of a bet... The portrait of a free woman in search of achievement.
Institut Lumière Fri 14 at 9:45am 

Craig’s Wife (1936, 1h13)
Harriet Craig had married Walter for security. When he gets mixed up in a murder, gossip disrupts their smooth and sterile world... A hit with audiences, the movie made Rosalind Russell a star.
Institut Lumière Mon 10 at 9:30am 

The Bride Wore Red (1937, 1h43)
Anni (Joan Crawford), a cabaret singer, is hired to impersonate an aristocrat's daughter in a palace... A film about the ambiguity of roles imposed on women, rich or poor.
Institut Lumière Wed 12 at 2:30pm 

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940, 1h30)
Bubbles (Lucille Ball), a cabaret dancer, and Judy (Maureen O'Hara), a ballerina, meet a young man of good family and fall in love... A feminist manifesto, the most famous film of Dorothy Arzner.
Institut Lumière Sun 9 at 9:30pm