THE GOLD DIGGERS

Director Sally Potter / 1983 / UK

Sally Potter’s debut feature film stars Julie Christie on a quest to find the truth about the nature of money, in this examination of the origins and currents of power.

Celeste (Collette Laffont) works in a bank as a computer clerk and has become fascinated by the relationship between gold and power. Ruby (Julie Christie) is a film star eager to explore her identity. As their quests become entangled, the two women come to realise that there is a link between feminine beauty and the masculine obsession with economic supremacy.  

Made with an entirely female cast and crew, this entrancing film is reminiscent of the tableaus of Bertolt Brecht and the black-and-white artistry of Ingmar Bergman. Even more striking is the way the film draws from and swiftly critiques the imagery and concerns of classical Hollywood cinema, and illustrates a hypothesis on the way femininity is constructed on screen that came to influence and define feminist cinema of the 1980s.

'A feminist sci-fi musical extravaganza … Remains consistently fresh and unpredictable.' – Sight and Sound

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