By STEVE MARTINDALE
Salt Spring Film Festival Society
Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton headline the invigorating opening night film of the Salt Spring Film Festival, Still Working 9 to 5, at Gulf Islands Secondary School on March 3.
These legendary screen icons revisit their 1980 hit comedy 9 to 5 to shine a light on how much — and, unfortunately, how little — has changed for women in the workplace over the past 43 years.
Released in 1980 alongside Dolly Parton’s catchy theme song, 9 to 5 became one of the highest-grossing films of the year, shattering the long-held belief that only men could headline a financially successful buddy comedy. Mixed in with plenty of belly laughs and screwball antics, the film delivered a serious message that the indignities and inequalities facing working women were really no joke.
Directed by award-winning filmmakers Camille Hardman and Gary Lane, Still Working 9 to 5 examines the correlation between the cultural inflection point of the original film and the subsequent evolution of women’s rights, tracing the history of the Equal Rights Amendment, the gender pay gap and changing attitudes towards sexual harassment, from Anita Hill to the #MeToo movement.
Featuring interviews with Dabney Coleman, Rita Moreno and Allison Janney, this empowering and unapologetically feminist crowd-pleaser was named Best Domestic Feature by the jury of the American Documentary Film Festival and Film Fund and won the Audience Choice Award at the Nashville Film Festival.
Returning to Gulf Islands Secondary School for the first time in three years, the film festival weekend features over 40 documentaries from around the world, many of them presented by the filmmakers themselves. Full festival passes are available for advance purchase via the ArtSpring box office.
The festival’s Best of the Fests series concludes tonight (Feb. 8) with the screening of The Grizzlie Truth, the wildly entertaining documentary in which basketball superfan Kat Jayme tries to get to the bottom of why the Vancouver Grizzlies departed for Memphis in 2001. Don’t miss this one-night-only screening at ArtSpring, with filmmaker Kat Jayme in attendance. Tickets are available through ArtSpring.