LOADING
Directed by Martha Coolidge | 83 minutes | 15+ | 50th Anniversary |
9:10pm Saturday, 16 May | Balam Balam Place - Cinema 4 | Buy Tickets | Buy Passes
Martha Coolidge's infamously provocative meditation on sexual violence and the culture that births it: restored in 4k.
Co-Presented by Asphalt Books
Director Martha Coolidge reenacts her own rape by a high-school classmate, basing the scenario on her experience at boarding school in the early 60s. The actors—some of whom have similar experiences of sexual assault—break the fourth wall, discussing the difficult parts they play and the real events being staged.
The effect is detaching, with Coolidge's storytelling style broadening events from her own life into a mosaic of adolescence—its discoveries, joys and dangers, all at once. "I have felt something missing for me as a woman from the male-made films on the subject," she has said: "Missing are the experiences unique to girls. I wanted to put some of these on the screen, funny and sad."
SIMILAR: The Rehearsal (2016), May December, The Tale (2018), Sorry Baby, I May Destroy You, Shirkers, Elle, Portrait of Jason
"an acting exercise, a personal exorcism and a powerful political tract" - J. Hoberman, The New York Times
"The combination of bracing honesty and compassion offered up in this remarkable film is a gift we can’t afford to ignore." - Molly Haskell, Criterion
CONTENT WARNING: Sexual violence
Country: United States
Year: 1976
Language: English