“As a filmmaker, my work has shed light on underrepresented people and stories. Films like ‘Enormous Changes,’ ‘Nobody’s Girls,’ ‘Last Dance,’ ‘The Only Real Game,’ and ‘No Fear No Favor,’ got made because of my own curiosities and my need to right wrongs, celebrate the unsung, or create fresh detail in in our cultural narratives. I’ve sought out the contradictions and complexities in our collective experience in order to be an engaging truth teller. Every new film presents an opportunity to delight or provoke viewers – and maybe to change the world.”
Mirra Bank
Mirra Bank is a tour de force. That is the only way I can think to describe her. I stumbled into her work after a family member of her’s introduced me. Finding Mirra was like uncovering a rare jewel and then having the opportunity to dig through mountains of treasure. After that, I went down the Mirra Bank rabbit hole. I’d add Mirra to the list of brilliant female filmmakers I’ve discovered after 2020, like Lizzie Borden, Nancy Savoca, Joan Micklin Silver, Kathleen Collins, and Fran Rubel Kuzui. I’m grateful to Criterion, Kino Lorber, and the Academy for bringing to the theaters 4K Restorations of their films.
Talking to Mirra Bank about her work was a true joy. She is not one kind of filmmaker when it comes to genre and structure. She has directed in the short form or the long form structure documentaries, narratives, and creative non-fiction work. All of her projects are a reflection of her dedication to highlight stories that do not get recognized in the mainstream media or in our history. That is what makes her work so special. Bank was part of the second-wave feminism in the 1970s, and she started her career elevating female stories, like in “Yudie” (1974) and “Spirit to Spirit: Nikki Giovanni” (1986). The Academy has made 4K restorations of both of these films.
Coming up on May 16th, “Yudie” will be featured in a program titled, “Through Her Lens,” at the Burns Film Center, and is composed of four films by women that deal with life in NYC. Mirra Bank will be there for a Q&A. Here’s the link for information and tickets: https://burnsfilmcenter.org/booking/new-york-through-her-lens/. There also is a virtual NYWIFT event with Mirra Bank this evening at 5 PM EST. Learn more here.
Can you talk about your transition into directing?
In the early 1970s, I contributed editorial work to the feature documentaries “Woodstock” (Academy Award-winner), and “Gimme Shelter,” by the Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. Immediately afterward I edited films for public television, and produced/directed films for various PBS series, including the Emmy-winning “Fifty-First State”, and “The Originals: Women in Art”, for which I directed “Anonymous Was a Woman,” about folk art by American women. I was commissioned by St. Martin’s Press to turn the film into an illustrated book, and my published version of Anonymous Was A Woman became a favorite.
By the mid 70s, with the emergence of second-wave feminism, I wanted to know more about my own roots. While continuing to work as a film editor on “Harlan County, USA” (Academy Award-winner), and the PBS series, “The Men Who Made the Movies,” I began to direct my own first film — a study of my sprightly, feisty 73-year old aunt, Yudie. She was born on Orchard Street to a family of immigrant Eastern European Jews, grew up on the Lower East Side, and asserted her independence from the start. The portrait film I made about her – “Yudie” — premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1974, in a feature program composed of short documentaries in which filmmakers had focused on their personal histories. That program included Marty Scorsese’s affectionate tribute to his mother and father, “Italian-American.”
“Yudie” then went on to extensive festival play and awards, to a number of national PBS broadcasts, and to distribution through the feminist cooperative, New Day Films. For my generation of emerging feminist filmmakers, documentary became a tool to explore personal history, to reveal unfamiliar worlds in a new way, and to re-frame larger historical dialogues.
In my own work, I wanted to know, “Who have we not been hearing from? How do we creatively put to rest the ‘dead white men’ version of history? There’s another story here – based on a history that’s mine, yours, ours.” Our generation was steeped in activism both from the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. Those were big influences on our creative development. And that’s where “Yudie,” along with other early films of mine, came from.
I love how you bring female stories to the screen, and for me, “Enormous Changes” and “Nobody’s Girls” did that so well. All those women’s stories are so universal and still so fresh. Can you talk about your experience working with these amazing actresses and telling these stories?
I made “Enormous Changes” several years earlier than “Nobody’s Girls.” And, while “Nobody’s Girls” is set in the American West, “Enormous Changes” is grounded in a New York City-based reality, getting into the nitty gritty of ordinary lives. In fact, when we set up our production company for the film, we called it Ordinary Lives, Inc.
An incomparable storyteller at that time was Grace Paley — a true original. I knew Grace slightly from Vermont, as well as from my Greenwich Village neighborhood in NYC, and she was an old friend of my directing partner, Ellen Hovde. Grace had an interest in seeing her work on screen, and signed onto our plan to adapt three of her stories into a feature. But, after a few attempts, Grace decided not to adapt the stories herself. Friends of mine at The New Yorker introduced me to John Sayles. I had seen “The Return of the Secaucus Seven,” and read his book, The Anarchists’ Convention — and loved them both. When I approached John about writing the screenplay for “Enormous Changes,” he said, “The Anarchists’ Convention is my homage to Grace Paley. I revere her work.”
Once John came on, we secured wonderful actors for our cast, including David Strathairn, Ellen Barkin, Maria Tucci, and Kevin Bacon. So, here we were with a deep bench of acting and literary resources – working on a shoestring, tiny budget. Why? Because no one had done this before. We managed a 21-day shoot in NYC locations for “Enormous Changes,” for a budget of under $400,000. The film premiered at Sundance, and went on to wide theatrical release with praise from critics throughout the run. “Enormous Changes” was a kind of pathfinder for low-budget feminist features produced, edited, and directed by women from the independent film community.
In the course of preparing the illustrated book based on my film “Anonymous Was a Woman,” I had done new research that turned up fascinating first-person accounts from women whose stories were not about art-making, but about survival and self-invention. Much of this material came from women involved in the often violent experiment of “settling” the American West. These were personal journeys of minority – and demi monde — women, who were among the real “pioneers” of the Old West, that I wanted to bring to light. I found funding to make “Nobody’s Girls: Five Women of the West,” and went off to Montana, Colorado and New Mexico to shoot the stories drawn from five marginalized voices.
The characters included a newly freed enslaved woman who sought refuge in Colorado before the Civil War and later brought thousands of freed Black Americans into the West; a Paiute woman from Nevada who fought for the rights of her tribe all the way to the White House; a Mexican faith healer and political activist who was extradited to the southwest by the rising dictator, Porfirio Diaz; and a Chinese woman who – due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – wound up in Alaska during the Yukon gold rush. With the portrait of the fiftth woman, Laura Evans — we meet a runaway wife from Kentucky who arrived in Denver’s red-light district with a newborn in her arms, and wound up as a successful Colorado madam. The legendary actress, Cloris Leachman, embodied Laura Evans on her turn of the twentieth century journey from runaway wife to sex-trade entrepreneur. Cloris’s performance is a brilliant, clear-eyed rendering of one of the darker aspects of America’s westward expansion.
Each story adds dimension to the film’s exploration of how women molded their identities to forge resilience. It was often oppressive circumstances abroad or in more settled parts of the US that led women to try their luck in the mining camps and boomtowns of the American West. My years long collaboration with local communities and historians in developing the film helped deliver the authenticity and accuracy of these narratives. In addition, by shooting on real locations, I aimed to immerse viewers in the landscapes and conditions that shaped these women’s lives.
“Enormous Changes” and “Nobody’s Girls” both express the resourceful ways women face down adversity. Bringing these stories to life affected me deeply. It reinforced my belief in the power of film to explode old myths, and inspire empathy.
Now, let’s talk about your work on “Last Dance.” What drew you to this project, and how was your experience working with Maurice Sendak?
“Last Dance” was a verité documentary project that resonated deeply with me from the moment I became involved. Pilobolus is known for its commitment to improvisation and group process. In choosing to work with the legendary author/illustrator, Maurice Sendak, on a uniquely narrative piece, they entered untested territory that required them to embrace Sendak’s commitment to telling a tough Holocaust story…in dance.
I worked with a tiny crew, in great intimacy with the dancers and the Artistic Directors on the rehearsal floor – including Maurice, who adored animating the dancers as the characters he had in mind. And they adored him right back. His commitment to honoring a wrenching historical narrative elicited from him both whimsy and depth. The dancers’ uncanny physical skill and Maurice’s genius for combining fantasy and reality yielded a vivid, haunting world onstage.
All of us were exploring the intersection of dance-storytelling and the human condition, including some of its horrors. What turned into a no-holds-barred – often fierce and hilarious – collaboration between the Pilobolus Artistic Directors and Sendak, also transformed me as a filmmaker. The experimentation and risk-taking of our collective process pushed me to embrace every crisis, every setback, every unexpected turn, free of judgment.
“Last Dance” compelled me, ever after, to welcome uncertainty and “trouble” as my allies in revealing a deeper truth, and delivering a stronger filmic outcome. “Last Dance” was shortlisted for an Academy Award and was a critical hit during its theatrical run. It was also an award-winning festival favorite, followed by premiering at the Doc Days programming strand on The Sundance Channel.
Now, let’s delve into “The Only Real Game.” What inspired you to use baseball as a lens to explore the human experience in Manipur?
“The Only Real Game” sheds light on the resilience and spirit of the people of the tiny state of Manipur in troubled northeast India. This ethnic-minority “renegade” region has been under military occupation by the Indian army since 1958, and it has endured conflict and hardship ever since. For Manipuris, the quintessentially American sport of baseball has become a powerful source of “resistance” — a metaphor for hope and freedoms. They see this team sport, with rules that ensure a level playing field for all, as a profoundly democratic game.
I was particularly captivated with the “power players” of baseball in Manipur — the women. They are skillful (hardball) players and great coaches of the game; they see it as a way to keep their kids away from gangs, guns and drugs. Manipur’s martial arts tradition and sports culture is renowned – Manipur claims to have invented the modern game of polo. Manipuri women’s determination to defy political and social dysfunction, and protect their kids’ well-being through American baseball is inspiring. The game provides a sense of community and purpose while defying traditional gender roles. The deeper we went into the lives of these remarkable women, the more we saw how the universal power of sport can transcend cultural barriers and unite communities. On screen, we see how mastering America’s National Pastime instills confidence, resilience, and hope in Manipuris, in the face of unimaginable challenges.
Making “The Only Real Game” was both humbling and rewarding. The experience reaffirmed my belief that truthful storytelling can inspire change and foster empathy across borders.
Moving on to “No Fear No Favor,” your latest documentary, can you share what drew you to this project and what you hope viewers will take away from it?
“No Fear No Favor” emerged from a desire to shed light on the devastating impact of poaching, international trafficking, and environmental degradation on communities in sub-Saharan Africa. As someone who is passionate about conservation and wildlife protection, I used filmmaking to engage directly with the threats to these people, animals, and landscapes.
The documentary explores the complex interplay between conservation, human rights, and socioeconomic development, with a focus on community-led initiatives in Zambia, Kenya, and Namibia. Through intimate interviews and immersive filming in wilderness areas (I shot, as well as directed, this film), we highlight the central role that local communities must play in protecting their natural resources, profiting from them, and preserving their way of life.
Africans living and working on the frontlines of conservation are at the center of this story. Their experiences model the way personal activism can help create a more sustainable and equitable future for all. My hope is that “No Fear No Favor” will inspire viewers to treasure their relationship to the natural world and affirm the interconnectedness of human and environmental rights.
Learn more about Mirra’s work and where to find it here. Coming up on May 16th, “Yudie” will be featured in a program titled, “Through Her Lens,” at the Burns Film Center. Here’s the link for information and tickets: https://burnsfilmcenter.org/booking/new-york-through-her-lens/. There also is a virtual NYWIFT event with Mirra Bank this evening at 5 PM EST. Learn more here.
