Tillie Olsen documentary screens tonight in Oakland
Published January 14th, 2008 in Go hetero ally go!, Miscellaney.
San Francisco Chronicle photo of filmmaker Ann Hershey by Liz Hafalia
Documentary filmmaker Annie Hershey’s long-awaited film about the life and work of writer-activist Tillie Olsen will be making its Bay Area debut tonight, on what would have been Olsen’s ninety-sixth birhtday. She died on New Year’s Day a year ago.
A Heart in Action will screen at the Grand Lake Theater* at 7pm (tickets $10 at the door). Members of Tillie’s family, along with Ronnie Gilbert, will lead audience members in singing some of Tillie’s favorite labor songs before the film begins (lyrics will be provided, but I’m going to guess we will not be accompanied by the theater’s Mighty Wurlitzer). A question and answer session with the filmmaker will follow the screening. Hershey poured her heart and soul into this film over the past seven years — though I’ve not seen it yet, I’ve heard her talk of it, and I expect it to be an exquisitely executed homage, most worthy of its legendary subject.
The San Francisco Chronicle did a nice piece on the documentary last week. Here’s my post last year, on the occasion of Olsen’s then-upcoming memorial.
* Locals know this theater not just for its 1920s Grand Dame grace and its Mighty Wurlitzer, but for its owner’s use of one half of the marquee — which faces westbound drivers on one of the busiest Bay Area freeways — for piquant political messages, all of which are located way up Tillie’s alley. Here’s a photo log of them on Flickr.
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Lesbian Dad is written by a parent who answers to the name "Baba" and works toward a world in which amor does indeed vincit omnia. 
Hi! I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now and I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your writing. I read “I Stand Here Ironing” in school and it made me cry, and I never thought about the author until now. Thank you for sharing your world and your beautiful children!
Well, it’s time for this longtime lurker to finally come out, so-to-speak. I wanted to last year when I found out about Tillie Olsen’s death on LD just when I was wondering what had happened to her - but you know how it is with raising our kids and all. I wrote my master’s thesis on Tillie Olsen (for my German university) back in 1980 when there were all but 5 published articles on her work. I would so love to see this movie: keep us posted if or when it is available for those of us who live in other parts of the world. (The link in the SF Chronicle article to a tillieolsenfilmproject site unforunatley doesn’t work.) And thank you for this great mix of lesbian parenting and progressive politics!