Lois Siegel

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Lois Siegel (born 1946) is an American-born Canadian film director and photographer. [1] She is most noted for her 1989 short documentary film Stunt People , [2] and her 1995 feature documentary Baseball Girls . [3]

Contents

Early career

Born in Wisconsin, [4] Siegel attended Ohio University, where she was a sportswriter for the student newspaper. [3] After graduating with a master's degree in English, she moved to Montreal in 1970 to study French at McGill University. [1] After completing her studies, she decided to stay in Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen and working in various roles in film, including assistant camera credits on the films East End Hustle , The Rubber Gun and Happiness Is Loving Your Teacher . [4]

Filmmaking

Her first film for the NFB was 1979's Stunt Family, part of the Canada Vignettes series. [4]

In 1983 she released the experimental feature film A 20th Century Chocolate Cake . [5] She followed up in 1988 with Strangers in Town, a mid-length documentary film about people with albinism.

In this era she also had numerous credits as a casting director, including on the films Train of Dreams , Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller , Princes in Exile and Vincent and Me . [6]

Stunt People, released in 1989, was a longer film about the same family of stunt performers she had profiled in Stunt Family. [2] It was the winner of the Genie Award for Best Short Documentary at the 11th Genie Awards in 1990, [7]

She followed up in 1993 with Lip Gloss, a documentary film about the drag scene in Montreal whose participants included Armand Larrivée, Derek McKinnon and Guilda. [8] Baseball Girls, a film about the history of women's baseball, followed in 1995. [3]

She has also taught film studies courses at John Abbott College and the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. [1]

Photography

Throughout her career, Siegel was also a photographer, regularly photographing both film sets and jazz, blues and rock concerts. [9] She did this mainly as a hobby at first, but after Baseball Girls she began to exhibit her photography in gallery shows. [9]

She later moved to Ottawa, where she taught video production at the University of Ottawa, [10] and continued to work as a freelance photographer for media, arts organizations and community groups in the city. [11] She was also the writer of "A Man for All Stages", a documentary about actor Christopher Plummer, for the CBC Television biographical documentary series Life and Times . [11]

She is an out lesbian. [12]

Filmography

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Jean Russell, "Genie-award winner Lois Siegel partied all night; Then it was right back to work for documentary film-maker from Kirkland". Montreal Gazette , March 22, 1990.
  2. 1 2 Jim Levesque, "Lois Siegel's Stunt People". Cinema Canada , November 1989.
  3. 1 2 3 Bill Brownstein, "Picking up ball Burns dropped; Montreal director chronicles role of women in baseball". Montreal Gazette , March 21, 1990.
  4. 1 2 3 Martha Jones, "Introducing Lois Siegel: Overdosed on energy". Cinema Canada , January/February 1979.
  5. ↑ "Lois Siegel's A 20th Century Chocolate Cake". Cinema Canada , July/August 1983.
  6. ↑ Bruce Bailey, "Filming Tommy Tricker more than child's play for Montrealer Rubbo". Montreal Gazette , July 24, 1987.
  7. ↑ Jay Scott, "Jesus swept: an even dozen Genies". The Globe and Mail , March 21, 1990.
  8. ↑ Jay Stone, "Documentary provides glimpse of world most never see". Ottawa Citizen , June 15, 1994.
  9. 1 2 Anne Sutherland, "Shooting Stars: Lois Siegel's photographs are testimony to time spent on movie sets around town". Montreal Gazette , March 13, 1997.
  10. ↑ Paul Gessell, "Soul catcher". Ottawa Citizen , July 13, 2004.
  11. 1 2 Andrea Lewandoski, "Taking time to make a difference: Lois Siegel shows you can fight city hall". Capital Xtra! , November 3, 2004.
  12. ↑ "Lois Siegel". MediaQueer .
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