Programmed October 2020

Films by Jenni Olson

Featuring a new introduction by Olson The personal and the political meet in the ruminative essay films of queer cinema memoirist Jenni Olson. Interweaving reflections on landscapes (particularly those of her longtime home city of San Francisco), lesbian identity, sexuality, and cinema, Olson’s searching, slyly self-deprecating film diaries take the viewer down a dizzying array of intellectual rabbit holes; they’re as likely to spin off into a history of the Golden Gate Bridge as a suicide hotspot (as in The Joy of Life ) as they are into an account of a one-night stand with a straight woman (as in Blue Diary ). Drawing on her deep knowledge of film history, Olson suffuses her works with allusions to classic Hollywood cinema (notably Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in her latest feature, The Royal Road ), bringing dream-factory fantasy into intimate dialogue with the contemporary queer experience. Added on Wednesday, 14 October 2020

No longer streaming