Penny Lane

Maysles Documentary Center spotlights the first four feature documentaries of filmmaker Penny Lane, who over the last decade has distinguished herself as a vital voice in contemporary nonfiction film & video. Defined by an eclectic use of formal techniques and a burning intellectual curiosity, Lane’s body of work reveals a consistent preoccupation with the nature of truth, communicated with a wry sense of humor — an epistemological cheek. In 2016, she launched “Notes on NUTS!”, an exhaustive online compendium of annotations to her third feature. By ranking the film’s various claims and implications on a “truth scale”, Lane acknowledged and deconstructed the obfuscations of fact made by documentarians in pursuit of a good story. Her latest film, HAIL SATAN?, incorporates her first use of direct footage to profile The Satanic Temple, an organization as adept at using funny in defense of facts as the filmmaker herself. 

The new release HAIL SATAN? is available for $3 May 28-June 4. Additional films are available for free as part of this mini-retrospective!

Join us for a Zoom conversation on Saturday, May 30 at 1PM EDT with Penny Lane to dive deeper!