Wanda

#Event: IFI & Dublin Feminist Film Festival present Barbara Loden’s Wanda on May 20th

The Irish Film Institute in collaboration with Dublin Feminist Film Festival (DFFF), will present a rare screening of Barbara Loden’s Wanda, on Saturday. May 20th followed by a panel discussion.

Wanda is a film for women, by women, and about women. Shot on 16mm and screened in a 35mm restored print, the film is set in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania. Wanda is a young mother who casually relinquishes guardianship of her children and grants her husband a divorce. Penniless and fueled by alcoholism and depression, she takes to the road, where she encounters Norman or ‘Mr Dennis’ (Michael Higgins), an incompetent thief to whom she submits at every turn.

Loden’s film is often compared to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver; both films deal with the protagonists’ relationships with society, how each one reacts to their environment and processes the world internally.

Dublin Feminist Film Festival, now in its third year, runs from November 18th – 20th. The independent festival is run entirely by a small team of volunteers with all profits going directly to Sasane, a charity working with the survivors of human trafficking.

Following the screening, a panel comprising Tara Brady, film critic at The Irish Times, Karla Healion, Director of Dublin Feminist Film Festival and IFI’s Alice Butler will consider the role of passivity in Loden’s film as well as its reception both in US and Europe.

Tickets: €10 for both the screening and the panel discussion (tickets not sold separately) are available now at www.ifi.ie or by calling the IFI Box Office on 01-6793477.