The programme features documentary films dedicated to the famous writer Sylvia Plath and photographer Lee Miller. The films were first screened at the Dokukino KIC in Zagreb earlier this week, and are now heading to several other cities in Croatia – look for the list at the end of the article.
Sylvia Plath: Inside the Bell Jar (2018)
I write only because. There is a voice within me. That will not be still. This is how Slyvia Plath described herself and her urge to write when she was 15 years old. The very same voice will have its tragic end in 1963, when the young writer took her own life shortly after she published her seminal novel The Bell Jar.
Directed by Teresa Grifftihs, the film is the first to unravel the story behind the novel that shattered myths about women and shone a light on 1950s gender politics, sexual identity and mental health at a time when women struggled to find their voice. Narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal, the film takes us through interpretations that followed, featuring unpublished letters and unseen photographs, as well as a conversation with Sylvia Plath’s daughter Frieda Hughes, in this touching portrait of the talented artist.
Capturing Lee Miller (2020)
Vogue model, artist’s muse, fearless war photographer: Lee Miller had many lives. Featuring images of Lee and by Lee, the BBC documentary explores this pioneering female artist who broke taboos and defied expectations.
Miller started her career as a model and was featured on the cover of Vogue US. Dubbed ‘one of the most photographed girls in Manhattan’, she soon realised she’d rather be the one behind the camera.
She took portraits, created surrealist compositions, and invented the photographic technique of solarization together with Man Ray. Miller was the only female war photographer in Europe during WWII – she captured the German bombing of London, the Normandy landings, and the concentration camps Buchenwald and Dachau.
The photo of Miller in a bathtub in Hitler’s apartment, taken by David Scherman in 1945, is one of the most iconic images of her time.
Interested? Here’s a list of cities and venues that will host the two docs:
Zagreb: Dokukino KIC
Osijek: Kinoklub (Urania)
Križevci: Klub kulture
Požega: City library
Rovinj: A. Gandusio theatre
Split: Kinoteka Zlatna vrata
Šibenik: Kuća umjetnosti Arsen
Rijeka: Art kino Croatia
Zabok: Zelena dvorana
Pakrac: City library
Koprivnica: Kino Velebit
Pula: Kino Valli
Schedules will be published on the venues’ respective sites.
