Sneak preview! Director Whit Stillman in person!

Thirteen years after The Last Days of Disco, Oscar-nominated writer-director Whit Stillman is back with another affectionate skewering of the predilections and peccadilloes of America’s “urban haute bourgeoisie.” Set on the leafy campus of fictional Seven Oaks University, Damsels in Distress follows a trio of beautiful, slightly delusional female students–the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Greta Gerwig), principled Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and sexy Heather (Carrie MacLemore)–who set out to make the world a better place by running a suicide prevention center where tap dancing and perfume are proffered as conduits to happiness. Yet despite their resolve to set their sights low where men are concerned and mircomanage heartbreak out of their lives, these latter-day Jane Austen heroines soon find themselves navigating a gauntlet of potential suitors, their carefully ordered universe threatening to implode at every turn. Filmed in candy-colored pastels and culminating in a show-stopping musical number, Stillman’s hilarious send-up of the academy and those who inhabit it marks a welcome, overdue return for one of American independent cinema’s most distinctive voices.