Film series: Merrily we go to hell 26 June – 1 September 2019

By Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd, curator, film

Still from Ratcatcher, 1999 — Still from *Ratcatcher*, 1999

Celebrating women in cinema

Merrily we go to hell: an invitation to cast one’s cares aside this winter and toast to ten weeks of fun, defiant cinema by brilliant female directors. This film series, screening from 26 June to 1 September 2019, features the best of golden age Hollywood, film noir, ’70s New York comedy and contemporary cinema from around the globe.

To thrive in an industry still beset by inequalities, female directors have cultivated arts of resilience. This season explores how their talent, creativity and determination translate into whip-smart films. These are stories where narrative conflict is met with exuberant displays of dance, mayhem and rebellion.

Each filmmaker in this series revels in a distinctive devil-may-care approach to genre conventions. Dorothy Arzner, the only female director working in 1930s Hollywood, transforms the rom-com into a scandalous study of adultery in Merrily we go to hell. Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends reworks the hallmarks of neurotic New York comedy from the perspective of two best friends. Meanwhile, Věra Chytilová’s Czech new wave classic, Daisies, merges the insurrectionary energy of the Prague Spring with carnivalesque surrealism.

As the young troublemakers of Daisies proclaim before their gleeful revolt: ‘Everything’s going bad in this world. If everything’s going bad, we’re going bad too!’

Films

26, 30 June – Merrily we go to hell (director Dorothy Arzner, US, 1932, 35mm)
29 June – Just another girl on the IRT (director Leslie Harris, US, 1992, 35mm)
3, 7 July – The hitch-hiker (director Ida Lupino, US, 1953, 35mm)
10, 14 July – Daisies (director Věra Chytilová, CZ, 1966, 35mm-to-digital)
17, 21 July – A new leaf (director Elaine May, US, 1971, 35mm)
24, 28 July – Girlfriends (director Claudia Weill, US, 1978, 35mm-to-digital)
27 July – The love witch (director Anna Biller, US, 2016, digital)
31 July, 4 August – Ratcatcher (director Lynne Ramsay, UK, 1999, 35mm)
7, 11 August – Morvern Callar (director Lynne Ramsay, UK, 2002, 35mm)
14, 18 August – Orlando (director Sally Potter, UK, 1992, 35mm)
21, 25 August – The headless woman (director Lucrecia Martel, Argentina, 2008, digital)
28 August, 1 September – Marlina the murderer in four acts (director Mouly Surya, Indonesia, 2017, digital)