Love & Diane

10th Anniversary Screening! Director Jennifer Dworkin and subject Diane Hazzard in person for Q&A with Film Comment senior editor Nicolas Rapold. Introduction by Steve Holmgren of UnionDocs.

An official selection of the 2002 New York Film Festival, Love & Diane screened only once on a Saturday morning but soon emerged as an early masterpiece in a documentary-rich decade. Director Jennifer Dworkin originally met Diane through her nieces and nephew, whom she taught in a photography workshop for a Harlem homeless shelter. Dworkin would film Diane and her daughter Love over several years, developing a bond of deep trust. The result is a rich, subtle, and moving portrait of a family facing enormous challenges, marked by Dworkin’s clear-eyed empathy and deepened through excerpts from the family’s own Super 8 footage.

“This epic documentary is destined to become one of the touchstones of American nonfiction cinema. Jennifer Dworkin spent years following the story of Diane Hazzard—recovering crack addict, penitent parent—and what she creates is the Moby-Dick of drug addiction, welfare, and a certain kind of agonizing experience in America. Beginning with the birth of Diane’s HIV-positive grandson, born to her teenage daughter, Love, the film follows the family through the riptides of parenthood, joblessness, and poverty, as well as the temptation to simply give up. Love & Diane is a social statement, an indictment of a system, and a lesson in personal responsibility.” —NYFF 40

“In Dworkin’s hands, the film of the mother’s struggle to lift herself up and sooth her daughter’s fury takes on the lyrical, spiritual, and psychic power of a literary saga.” —Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

This screening is co-presented with UnionDocs. Special thanks to Women Make Movies and POV.

UnionDocs is a Center for Documentary Art that generates and shares big ideas. UnionDocs (UnDo) brings together a diverse community of experimental media-makers, dedicated journalists, critical thinkers, and local partners on a search for urgent expressions of the human experience, practical perspectives on the world today, and compelling visions for the future. Visit  www.uniondocs.org for more information and our complete schedule of weekend screenings and other events.