Film Forum

(1973) Poet and first-time filmmaker Sandra Hochman got $15,000 and an all-woman crew to document the1972 Democratic Convention, sabotaging Walter Cronkite and other male network anchors for ignoring Shirley Chisholm’s historic campaign, bringing the convention to a halt with stripper Liz Renay, and snaring the likes of Warren Beatty and Gary Hart, with time out for byplay with columnist Art Buchwald (“the best new comedy team since Hepburn and Tracy” – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) and appearances by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Florynce Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, Germaine Greer, and other 70s feminist icons.  

Co-produced, directed, and animated by Hochman, YEAR OF THE WOMAN, presented in a new digital restoration, encompasses whimsy, as women indiscriminately don masks of the painter Martha Eidelheight; poetry, with Hochman reading her own work on abortion and media hypocrisy; and righteous rage, in a scene of feminist luminaries marching on CBS. After screening for five nights only at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in 1973, Hochman and co.’s rare and timely document has been virtually unseen ever since. DCP restoration courtesy Lilly Library, University of Indiana. 87 min.

Reviews

“In YEAR OF THE WOMAN, I suggested that men should go to rehabilitation centers. Now, in the era of Harvey Weinstein, the absurdist ideas of the future I predicted when I was young [in 1972] are all coming true.”
– Director Sandra Hochman. Read Hochman’s full statement here.

“HILARIOUS… ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!”
– Ms. Magazine

“A COLORFUL CRAZY-QUILT DOCUMENTARY!”
– Liz Smith, Cosmopolitan

“SANDRA HOCHMAN AND ART BUCHWALD ARE THE BEST NEW COMEDY TEAM SINCE HEPBURN AND TRACY!”
– Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.