Barbara Loden

Barbara Loden July 8 1932 September 5 1980 was a Broadway Tony awardwinning American stage and film actress model and stagefilm director She was the first woman to write direct and star in her own feature film Wanda which won the International Critics Award at the 1970 Venice Film Festival Loden also directed several offBroadway plays Loden was a life member of the famed Actors Studio and appeared in several projects directed by her second husband Elia Kazan including Splendor in the Grass In 1970 Loden wrote produced directed and starred in her own independent film Wanda made with the collaboration of cinematographer and editor Nicholas T Proferes on a meager budget of 115000 Wanda is an semiautobiographical portrait of a passive disconnected coal miners wife who attaches herself to a petty crook4 Innovative in its cinéma vérité style it was one of the few American films directed by a woman to be theatrically released at that time Film critic David Thomson wrote Wanda is full of unexpected moments and raw atmosphere never settling for cliché in situation or character The film was the only American film accepted to and which won the International Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1970 and was presented at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival In 2010 with support from Gucci the film was restored by the UCLA Film Television Archive and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan