Wanda (1970)
(Barbara Loden, US 1970, 102 min., 35mm)
Wanda is writer-director-star Barbara Loden’s only feature film. Inspired by her own feelings of aimlessness and a newspaper article about a woman who participated in a bank robbery, Loden wrote the script before even acquiring financing. In the film, Wanda Goronski (Loden) loses her job, marriage, children, and new man in quick succession. When she meets Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a small-time crook, she clings to him for dear life. Produced at the apex of the New Hollywood movement, the film won Best Foreign Film at the Venice International Film Festival, but was overlooked at home, inspiring a re-discovery decades later. The film reached #5 on Sight and Sound magazine's list of The Greatest Films of All Time.