Hope Runs High and AFI Silver are proud to present
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"Discovering new worlds...[in the] first virtual repertory series." - NPR WBUR
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We're proud to bring you the theatrical re-release of Academy Award® winner Lee Grant's documentary work. This series represents the most comprehensive retrospective of Grant's time behind the camera ever assembled.
Movie lovers know Lee Grant primarily as a brilliant actor with a distinguished career, including four Oscar® nominations, from her 1952 nod for DETECTIVE STORY to her win for SHAMPOO in 1976. Fewer actually know Grant for her career as a director, a path she pursued by first enrolling in the inaugural class of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women.
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Behind the camera, Grant quickly turned to making documentary films, bringing to the screen real American stories covering issues and topics that are as powerful and relevant today as they were over thirty years ago – sex discrimination, the homeless, farmers’ rights and the transgender community. Her groundbreaking work in documentary earned a second Oscar® for the DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA. She was the subject of AFI Doc's 2020 Guggenheim Symposium.
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Curated by actor/director Taylor A. Purdee the series features teasers, program notes, excerpts from Kirk Douglas' home archive, new interviews with Grant and six of her acclaimed documentaries. Featuring the groundbreaking WHAT SEX AM I?, Oscar® winner DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA, and Lee's unequaled profile of Kirk and Michael Douglas' Hollywood dynasty, A FATHER...A SON... ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.
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Films can be viewed on your computer, mobile device, and television (via Chromecast, AirPlay, and HDMI). Half of every ticket goes to supporting AFI Silver while the doors are closed.
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Opens 7/29
Down and Out in America
Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature, Lee Grant's exploration of Reagan-era America takes us from the heartland, where farms that have fed the U.S. for a century are being dismembered by local banks, through the the tent-cities of Los Angeles and welfare hotels of New York. A groundbreaking and unforgettable look at life inside an America we have been too quick to forget. Purchase Ticket
Opens 8/5
The Willmar 8
Grant's feature length directorial debut follows eight women in America's heartland who are driven by gender discrimination to picket the bank where they work, in the dead of a Minnesota winter. Risking jobs, friends, family and their place in the community, the Willmar 8 began the longest bank strike in American history in a dramatic attempt to assert their own equality and self-worth. With a stirring original score by Peter, Paul, and Mary's Peter Yarrow, Lee Grant's first film is a knockout as relevant now as it ever was. Purchase Ticket
Opens 8/12
When Women Kill
Lee Grant's acclaimed film explores life inside several women's prisons across the United States and the circumstances that led to the incarceration of various inmates. Grant focuses on women convicted of crimes ranging from drug abuse to first degree murder, their families, and features Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten. Purchase Ticket
Opens 8/19
A Father a Son, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Grant's first film role (and Oscar® nomination) was for her role alongside Kirk Douglas in William Wyler's Detective Story, immediately before being blacklisted for 12 years. Her portrait of Kirk and Michael Douglas' Hollywood Dynasty is alternatively a celebration, indictment, and fabulous dinner party. This is the kind of film that could only have been created by a confidant and friend. Purchase Ticket
Opens 8/26
What Sex Am I?
Academy Award® winner Lee Grant's groundbreaking "What Sex Am I?" follows a group of Transgender individuals struggling to make their way in every strata of 1980s America. From finding employment to finding acceptance, the first question the world forces them to ask is always, "What Sex Am I?" Made in 1985, Grant continues to prove herself a director decades ahead of her time. Purchase Ticket
Opens 9/2
Battered
Academy Award® winner Lee Grant's acclaimed portrait of domestic violence in American Homes. A powerful if harrowing step inside life lived in constant fear of the people closest to you. Grant explores every angle, from time with the people who have escaped, succumbed to, or continue to live with domestic violence, as well as eye opening and heart breaking conversations with the abusers themselves. Purchase Ticket