“Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Pet Sematary,” and “Yentl” are just a few of the titles Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is set to screen in their latest film series, “Punks, Poets, and Valley Girls: Women Filmmakers in 1980s America.” The survey also includes films that made a mark outside of mainstream Hollywood, including “Losing Ground” and “Twice as Nice.” The former, directed by Kathleen Collins, tells the story of a college professor and a painter in a rocky relationship who venture outside the city for the summer. The latter is a basketball pic helmed by Jessie Maple, the first black woman admitted to New York’s camera operators union.
Scheduled to take place August 7-20, the 27-feature, 10-short series includes “bold works by female filmmakers in a conservative decade, ranging from studio blockbusters to politically radical underground masterpieces,” a press release details. “Punks, Poets, and Valley Girls” pays tribute to “decade-defining classics by directors like Kathryn Bigelow, Amy Heckerling, and Penny Marshall, who brought a sensitivity to female subjectivity and experience rare in mainstream cinema” and lesser known titles that “challenge white, heterocentric, patriarchal notions of narrative, form, and subject” and the artists behind them — “pioneers like Kathleen Collins, Lizzie Borden, and Donna Deitch, [who] defied the Reagan-era status quo to bring their stories and experiences to the screen.”
“We’re really excited to build on past series like ‘Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers’ and ‘A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era, 1967—1980’ with this program,” said series programmer Jesse Trussell. “Women have been making films since the very earliest days of the art form but rarely factor into the traditional ‘great man’ narrative of film history. With this series of programs, we are spotlighting these important artists and creating a counter-history of 20th century film.”
You can find the full program and scheduling info on BAM’s website.