Three Lives & Birth Film
Introduced by Patricia White, Centennial Chair and Professor of Film and Media Studies and Coordinator of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Swarthmore College
Time & Location
Jan 28, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Bok Auditorium, 800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148, USA
About the Event
Three Lives
Referencing Gertrude Stein’s book of the same name, Three Lives is the first feature length documentary made by an all-woman crew. Following the publication of Kate Millett’s first book “Sexual Politics,” a milestone of the second-wave feminist movement, Millett assembled a group of women including Susan Kleckner under the banner of Women’s Liberation Cinema.
Millett and Kleckner present the stories of three separate women who detail their experiences and challenges with welcome honesty. Through interviews with Mallory Millett-Jones (the director’s sister), Lilian Shreve, and Robin Milde a complex picture of female solidarity emerges where the subjects reject a patriarchal model of society and foreground their identities as women. (Kate Millett & Susan Kleckner, USA, 1971, 70 min.)
Birth Film
Susan Kleckner’s Birth Film is a documentary focused on a home birth and the feminist implications surrounding it. The film follows Kristen Booth Glen and her husband Jeffrey, both…