Women Make Waves International Film Festival

Program

Lady Lazarus——The Work of Sylvia Plath

Sandra Lahire 1991 UK Experimental color 25min Betacam
Lady Lazarus weaves a visual response to Sylvia Plath's own readings of her work, including Daddy, Ariel and selections from The Bell Jar. Elegiac but unsentimental , this evocative film celebrates the legendary writer, her macabre humor and the resonance of her words. Drawn irresistibly towards Plath's haunting voice-recorded during the final years before her death in 1963-the film's figurative Lady Lazarus is a young woman who acts as a spiritual medium for the writer during a seance. Set in Massachusetts and England, where Plath spent her life, Lady Lazarus translates Plath's poetry into a carousel of stark, deeply poetic imagery.

Director

Sandra Lahire

Sandra Lahire was born in 1950. She studied Philosophy at the University of Newcastle-on-Tyne (BA), Fine Art Film at St Martins School of Art (BA 1984) and Film & Environmental Media at the Royal College of Art (MA 1986). Her films have been shown nationally and internationally at cinemas and festivals including Creteil, Locarno, Berlin, Montreal, Sao Paolo, Turin, Jerusalem, Australia and the Philippines. Writings include Lesbians in Media Education published in Visibly Female (ed Hilary Robinson, Camden Press 1987) and articles for Undercut. She also wrote a musical score for Lis Rhodes' film Just About Now. She passed away in 2001.