Weekend With... is a series that offers audiences the chance to dive deep into the work of a filmmaker, actor, or key creative over the course of one weekend.

A native of the Midwest, Jill Sprecher draws on her own life experiences in her films, while expanding beyond the personal to the existential, probing the meaning of happiness, serendipity, and the often-daily absurdities of being alive.

After moving to New York, Sprecher wrote Clockwatchers, with her sister Karen, which drew on her own experiences as a temp worker. Made on a shoestring budget, the film is a case study in indie filmmaking. But the backbone of the film is the ensemble cast of then-rising comic stars who bring to life the Sprecher sisters’ script with unforgettable humor and tenderness. In her follow-up, Thirteen Conversations about One Thing, also cowritten with Karen, this emphasis on the ensemble remains, as do the sharp dialogue and keenly observed nuances of human drama. Rounding out the series, Sprecher selected to screen Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, considered to be a masterpiece in the heist genre and revisited time and again for its snappy hard-boiled dialogue.

Programmed and notes by Kiva Reardon

Weekend With... Jill Sprecher

Past Screenings in Series