Athena Film Festival

March 2021

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

Held Auditorium

  • Director: Rob Garver
  • Type: Documentaries
  • Year: 2019
  • Language: English
  • Length: 95 min
  • Screening: Mar 3 12:00 PM

This nuanced portrait of Pauline Kael, among the most famous and divisive film critics of all time, uses never-before-seen archival film, wide-ranging interviews and her own writings voiced by Sarah Jessica Parker, to capture her complexity while revisiting late-twentieth-century cinema through her lens.

Discussion on Inclusion in Criticism to follow the screening 

Inclusion in Criticism 
Over 75% of film critics are male. Most are white. How can we ensure films are being equitably reviewed if the reviewers don’t reflect the world we live in and the breadth of the films produced. This panel will discuss ways to level the playing field.

Panelists
Aisha Harris, New York Times 
Monica Castillo, Critic
Kate Erbland, Indiewire 

Moderator: Caryn James, BBC

Caryn James is the New York-based film critic for BBC Culture, and a regular contributor on film and television to The Wall Street Journal and The Hollywood Reporter.  She was previously a film critic and chief television critic for The New York Times, and has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, MSNBC, and other programs as a film commentator. She is the author of the novels Glorie and What Caroline Knew, and is Adjunct Asst. Professor in the Film Dept. at Columbia University.

Aisha Harris is a senior staff editor at the New York Times on the culture desk. Previously, she was a longtime culture writer and editor for Slate and the host of its podcast centered around representation in film and TV, Represent.

Monica Castillo is a New York City-based writer and critic. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, RogerEbert.com, NPR, Remezcla and The Village Voice.

Kate Erbland is the New York-based Film Editor at IndieWire, where she writes and edits daily for the site. Her previous work can be found at Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, The Dissolve, and Vulture. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Art History from Loyola Marymount University.

Filmmaker bio: Rob Garver has written, produced, and directed several short films that have been screened in local New York cinemas, and aired on cable television. What She Said is his first feature. Films include: Comic Belief , a documentary profile of cartoonist Dan Piraro, The Man in the Yellow Cap, and Two Roads From Belfast, Maine, a short narrative that has aired on the Classic Arts Showcase cable network. He graduated from Northwestern University.