GIRLFRIENDS

"[Girlfriends] feels like my oldest influence ... From the first shot, I was transfixed. By the complex relationships, the subtlety, the odd comedy that was awkward long before awkward was cool." – Lena Dunham

Influencing and impressing the likes of Greta Gerwig and Lena Dunham, Stanley Kubrick and Roger Ebert, Claudia Weill's 1978 narrative feature debut is a critically acclaimed but criminally overlooked gem of second-wave feminism.

The story of Susan and Anne, two 20-something New York besties navigating the changes wrought on their relationship when Anne marries and moves on, forcing Susan to figure out who she is on her own, Girlfriends was groundbreaking for more than just its stereotype-shattering portrayal of female friendship. Shot independently on a 16mm shoestring but receiving a theatrical release from Warner Brothers, its leading lady (Melanie Mayron's Susan) is Jewish, bespectacled and big-haired – a far cry from what Weill calls the "pretty, blonde, breezy" female protagonist expected at the time – but is still attractive to men! The film's origins as a documentary project on Jewish American identity remain in its low-fi aesthetic and attention to minutiae, but its witty, acerbic script and stunningly naturalistic performances from Mayron and a cast including Christopher Guest, Eli Wallach, Bob Balaban and the Golden Globe nominated Anita Skinner helped secure Weill's place as the third woman admitted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winning the People's Choice Award at that year's Toronto International Film Festival as well as the Locarno Film Festival's Best Actress award for Mayron, Girlfriends is a complex, humane and timeless depiction of sisterhood.

"One of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe. It wasn't a success, I don't know why; it should have been. Certainly I thought it was a wonderful film." – Stanley Kubrick