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Janis Ian: Breaking Silence film image; woman playing a piano in front of big crowd

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

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In the mid-60s, Janis Ian, a tiny teenage Jewish singer-songwriter from New Jersey, scores a controversial hit single called “Society’s Child,” about an interracial love relationship. The song launches her illustrious career but also ignites death threats, plunging her into an emotional tailspin—only to emerge from the ashes in the 1970s with an even bigger hit, “At Seventeen,” a song ahead of its time in confronting lookism and bullying.

Janis overcomes a host of obstacles—embezzlement, record industry misogyny, and heartbreak—to find love and produce an indelible body of searingly honest songs that earn her a devoted following and critical acclaim.

Director

Varda Bar-Kar

Featuring

Janis Ian, Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

English

19+
114 min

Book Tickets

Monday May 05

4:45 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
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Wednesday May 07

6:20 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
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Credits

Screenwriter

Varda Bar-Kar, Pierre Hauser

Cinematography

Matthew Steven Wilder

Editor

Ryan Larkin

Original Music

Janis Ian, David Melchor

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