Stranded

(Juleen Compton, US 1965, 90 min., 35mm)

UCLA Festival of Preservation Tour. Juleen Compton was an independent American filmmaker and one of the only women making features during the 1960s. Stranded, her first movie, tells the story Raina, a young American woman (played by Compton), traveling through Greece with her American lover, and her French, gay, best friend. Raina partakes in several love affairs, rejecting marriage offers for no other reason than she likes her life the way it is. Made just prior to the arrival of second wave feminism, Compton’s film never judges the writer/director’s on-screen alter ego the way similar female characters were frequently punished in other films during this era by stigmatizing female sexuality. Preservation funded by Century Arts Foundation.