I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing
Written and directed by Patricia Rozema

Wednesday, February 1, 3 pm  Cinema +

$12 / $8 Speed members / Free to UofL students, faculty, and staff

“Swift, witty and intimate.”—Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

This charming, whimsical story about a waifish daydreamer with artistic aspirations is structured around a video-recorded confession. 

In Patricia Rozema’s fanciful character study, aspiring photographer Polly (comedian Sheila McCarthy) lands a job at a Toronto art gallery run by Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon), who is also a painter. Polly is impressed with Gabrielle’s paintings, but as Polly gets to know her lover Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald) and becomes entangled in their lives, she realizes Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she appears to be. The gauche absent-minded temp with spiky orange hair and the polished, bourgeois curator with a gift for gab are like night and day, yet a strong connection builds between these two women through their shared love of art, and their genuine curiosity and appetite for love. Winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. 1987, Canada, DCP, 81 minutes. 

Cinema + Followed by a post-screening discussion with the director via Zoom led by Dr. Jennifer Sichel, Hite Institute of Art and Design, University of Louisville. Co-presented with the Comparative Humanities Department, University of Louisville.