Anita
“Anita” screens at 3:30 p.m., Sunday, May 26, at the Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center, 400 S. Second St., in downtown Renton. Tickets are available at online at siff.net.
Here’s the film’s description from the Seattle International Film Festival.
Oscar-winning documentarian Freida Lee Mock (“Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision”) spotlights Anita Hill, the woman who in 1991 was subpoenaed to testify to accusations of sexual harassment regarding future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Hill, now a professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University, as well as the author of a 1997 autobiography, “Speaking Truth to Power,” has long declined filmmakers’ requests to revisit the landmark hearings. She agreed to Mock believing she was the right person to tell the story, and that she would be in good hands. While Hill’s goal with her testimony was to speak truth as to the character of Thomas, and not to bring awareness to problems of sexual harassment and the workplace, the hearings became a watershed moment in terms of women’s rights, as well as a cultural flashpoint that ignited public debates about sexual politics. Mock uses the 20th anniversary of the hearings to reflect on where America was culturally and politically in the early 1990s, where we are now, and what has—or hasn’t—changed as a new generation enters schools and the workforce. Director: Freida Mock. USA 2013 (84 minutes)
