Pioneers: Lois Weber

128 minutes, Digital
USA

Director: Lois Weber

Distributor: Kino Lorber

Short Feature Film:
Hypocrites

1915 • USA • 52 MIN • Silent

Weber courted immense controversy with this provocative exploration of sham religious piety, in which moral hypocrisy is exposed by the Naked Truth — portrayed literally by a nude actress.

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Feature Film:
Where Are My Children

1916 • USA • 65 MIN • Silent

This controversial drama is a frank and, for its time, surprisingly risky look at abortion, birth control, and sexuality that weds Weber’s innovative cinematic style to an impassioned (though now unsurprisingly retrograde) sociopolitical statement.

Selected for inclusion on the National Film Registry

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Short Film: (Pictured)
Suspense

1913 • USA • 11 MIN • Silent

This one-reel thriller — about a menaced mother and child — displays Weber’s dazzling formal mastery, including film history’s first split-screen. Film theorist Tom Gunning wrote: “No film made before WWI shows a stronger command of film style.”

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Series sponsored by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.