This summer, Selina Robertson and Isabel Moir bring the subversive feminist cinema of Stephanie Rothman to Bristol and London.
Labelled a second-wave exploitation filmmaker who made sexcapades, Stephanie Rothman’s counter-cultural films were recovered and celebrated by feminist film festivals and writers like Pam Cook in the 1970s. Looking back today, her work stands as some of the most progressively socio-political films about women’s lives in 1970s America.
The Working Girls (35mm 4k restoration, UK Premiere) and The Velvet Vampire will be screened as part of Cinema Rediscovered at the Watershed, Bristol on 24 and 25 July 2025. There will be a Q&A with the director via Zoom after The Working Girls on 24 July! General booking for the festival is now open, please click on the film titles above for more information.
Stephanie Rothman runs at Barbican Cinema, London from 29 July-14 August 2025 as part of their Hidden Figures strand, screening five of her films. There will be a ScreenTalk with the director via Zoom after the opening screening of Terminal Island, on 29 July, and after the closing screening of The Working Girls on 14 Aug. Booking is open!
Watch this space for new writing on Rothman’s work by Anahit Behrooz, to accompany her Culture Club essay on The Student Nurses.
The Cinema of Stephanie Rothman is presented as at Cinema Rediscovered as part of Other Ways of Seeing, with support from BFI Awarding Funds from National Lottery