Glen or Glenda (Celebrating 15 Years of the American Genre Film Archive)

Glen or Glenda (Celebrating 15 Years of the American Genre Film Archive)

Introduction by Jackson Cooper, Executive Director, AGFA.

The directorial debut from infamous B-movie auteur Ed Wood, who was posthumously dubbed the Worst Director of All Time, Glen or Glenda is a surprisingly tender, early depiction of a trans woman in 1950s America. Though a contemporary lens finds offensive terminology within this 70-year-old cult classic, Wood’s daring dive into the then-underground world of the trans experience ran at midnight at the Thalia in New York for five weekends in the summer of 1978 and traveled to China, to Belgium as Louis ou Louise, and to Argentina as Yo cambié mi sexo. Decades on, the film remains an imperfect yet significant milestone for trans representation in outsider filmmaking.

Formed in 2009, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) is the world’s largest archive dedicated to genre films (horror, sci-fi, exploitation, action, arthouse) and one of the only non-profit film distributors in existence. AGFA showcases over two-thousand movies that shape an alternate cinematic history–one of essential classics, nostalgic hits, and inspiring discoveries, preserving both the legacy of genre film and the theatrical experience itself.

DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Edward D. Wood Jr. WITH: Bela Lugosi, Lyle Talbot, Timothy Farrell, Dolores Fuller. 1953. 65 min. USA. B&W. English. Rated PG. DCP.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation. 

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