ThoughtGallery.org > Screening & Talk with Director: Wives (Hustruer)

Screening & Talk with Director: Wives (Hustruer)

wives

Wives. Photo courtesy of the Norwegian Film Institute.

Catch a free screening of Wives (Norway. Dir. Anja Breien. 1975, 83 mins. 35mm. With Anne Marie Ottersen, Katja Medbøe, Frøydis Armand) and meet director Anja Brienen for a discussion after the film.

Having seen John Cassavetes’s Husbands, Anja Breien felt prompted to make a humorous riposte; a chronicle of female exploits. Three former classmates, Mie, Kaja and Heidrun, now in their 30s, meet at a school reunion. Together, they represent the new post-war generation of middle-class Norwegian women. Following a drunken evening, they make a sudden decision to flee their families and responsibilities; roaming about Oslo, they discuss sex, womanhood and family responsibilities. Relying heavily on improvisation, the actresses (and co-authors) keep the story flowing within a tight structure that gradually reveals the characters’ inner selves.

Wives was an international success, gaining wide recognition for Breien. Columbia University professor Jane Gaines, director of the Women Film Pioneers Project, will introduce the screening, and there will be a discussion with Anja Breien following the screening.

 

About Director Anja Breien

Celebrated in her home country and throughout Europe, but little-known in America, the Norwegian film director Anja Breien makes feminist, politically aware fiction and documentary films. Because of their formal fluidity, exploration of women’s issues, and controlled directorial style, her films have often been compared to those of Chantal Akerman.

Her first feature film, Rape (1971), a critique of the Norwegian judicial system, is not told chronologically, but starts simultaneously at the beginning and the end, working its way into the middle; it was recently compared to Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011).

Inspired by John Cassavetes’s Husbands (1970), Breien made Wives (1975) as a riposte.  Next of Kin (1979), a satirical look at family members vying over an inheritance, was selected for the main competition in Cannes in 1979; juror Ingmar Bergman felt it should have won the Palme d’Or. This retrospective, the first one of Breien’s work in the U.S., is a rare opportunity to see her work theatrically, with the filmmaker in person and introductions by renowned scholars Jane Gaines and Richard Peña.

 











When: Sat., Nov. 2, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Where: Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave.
718-777-6888
Price:
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wives

Wives. Photo courtesy of the Norwegian Film Institute.

Catch a free screening of Wives (Norway. Dir. Anja Breien. 1975, 83 mins. 35mm. With Anne Marie Ottersen, Katja Medbøe, Frøydis Armand) and meet director Anja Brienen for a discussion after the film.

Having seen John Cassavetes’s Husbands, Anja Breien felt prompted to make a humorous riposte; a chronicle of female exploits. Three former classmates, Mie, Kaja and Heidrun, now in their 30s, meet at a school reunion. Together, they represent the new post-war generation of middle-class Norwegian women. Following a drunken evening, they make a sudden decision to flee their families and responsibilities; roaming about Oslo, they discuss sex, womanhood and family responsibilities. Relying heavily on improvisation, the actresses (and co-authors) keep the story flowing within a tight structure that gradually reveals the characters’ inner selves.

Wives was an international success, gaining wide recognition for Breien. Columbia University professor Jane Gaines, director of the Women Film Pioneers Project, will introduce the screening, and there will be a discussion with Anja Breien following the screening.

 

About Director Anja Breien

Celebrated in her home country and throughout Europe, but little-known in America, the Norwegian film director Anja Breien makes feminist, politically aware fiction and documentary films. Because of their formal fluidity, exploration of women’s issues, and controlled directorial style, her films have often been compared to those of Chantal Akerman.

Her first feature film, Rape (1971), a critique of the Norwegian judicial system, is not told chronologically, but starts simultaneously at the beginning and the end, working its way into the middle; it was recently compared to Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011).

Inspired by John Cassavetes’s Husbands (1970), Breien made Wives (1975) as a riposte.  Next of Kin (1979), a satirical look at family members vying over an inheritance, was selected for the main competition in Cannes in 1979; juror Ingmar Bergman felt it should have won the Palme d’Or. This retrospective, the first one of Breien’s work in the U.S., is a rare opportunity to see her work theatrically, with the filmmaker in person and introductions by renowned scholars Jane Gaines and Richard Peña.

 

Buy tickets/get more info now