Programmed May 2021

Silent-Cinema Trailblazer: Directed by Lois Weber

Featuring a new introduction by critic Pamela Hutchinson Trailblazing writer and director Lois Weber combined technical mastery, creative control, and thematic daring to become arguably the first auteur in film history. Tackling controversial subjects such as sex work and birth control, Weber put forward a strikingly personal, ahead-of-its-time vision in films like The Dumb Girl of Portici , the first epic directed by a woman and the only feature film to star legendary ballet superstar Anna Pavlova; Shoes , a remarkable proto-neorealist study of poverty; and The Blot , a class-conscious romantic melodrama often cited as her masterpiece. Though a giant in her time—she ran her own studio, was the first woman director accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and at one point was the highest-paid director in Hollywood—her radically progressive body of work was obscured by the male-dominated consolidation of the studio system, making it now ripe for rediscovery.