Special
Preview Screening!
Film,
Q&A, and Reception
Thursday,
September 1st at 7:30 PM
LOVING
HIGHSMITH
In Person: Filmmaker
Eva Vitija
CAC & LIGLFF
Members $12 | Public $17
Co-Presented by the
Long Island Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
A mesmerizing and eye-opening portrait of Patricia Highsmith,
legendary author of Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr.
Ripley, and Carol. Based on Highsmith’s personal writings and
accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous
thriller writer’s life and oeuvre.
Loving Highsmith is a unique look at the
life of celebrated American author Patricia Highsmith based on
her diaries and notebooks and the intimate reflections of her lovers, friends
and family. Focusing on Highsmith’s quest for love and her troubled identity,
the film sheds new light on her life and writing. Most of Highsmith’s novels
were adapted into movies; the best known of these are Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers
on a Train and Anthony Minghella’s The
Talented Mr. Ripley. Carol, a partly autobiographic
novel, and the first lesbian story with a happy end in 1950s America, was later
adapted for the big screen by Todd Haynes. But Highsmith herself
was forced to lead a double life and had to hide her vibrant love affairs from
her family and the public. Only in her unpublished writings she reflected on
the ever-present subject for her. Excerpts from these notes voiced by Gwendoline
Christie (Game of Thrones, Top of the Lake),
beautifully interwoven with archive material of her and her most famous novel
adaptions, create a vivid, touching portrait of one of the most fascinating
female writers. (Switzerland/Germany, 2022, 83 min., color, DCP | Dir.
Eva Vitija)
About Filmmaker Eva Vitija: Born 1973 in Basel. 2002
Diploma in screenwriting from the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy
Berlin). She has been working as a screenwriter in Switzerland and Germany
since her screenplay training. She has written many feature film scripts for
cinema and television, including MEIER, MARILYN, MADLY IN LOVE as well as
SOMMERVÖGEL. In 2015, as part of her Master’s degree at the ZHdK (Zurich
University of the Arts), she made her first feature-length documentary film as
a director: DAS LEBEN DREHEN. It was nominated as best documentary for the
Swiss Film prize and for an award from the International Documentary
Association, Los Angeles, and won various prizes, including the Prix de
Soleure, the Basel film Prize and the Zurich Film Prize. Eva Vitija lives in
Zurich.
