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]
Early career
editBorn 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
editHer 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
editThroughout 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]
Filmography
edit- Spectrum in White - 1971
- Paralysis - 1972
- Painting With Light - 1974
- Boredom - 1976
- Faces - 1976
- Canada Vignettes: Stunt Family - 1978
- Dialogue of an Ancient Fog - 1978
- Recipe to Cook a Clown - 1978
- Solitude - 1978
- Arena - 1979
- A 20th Century Chocolate Cake - 1983
- Plastic Dreams - 1988
- Strangers in Town - 1988
- Stunt People - 1989
- Pancake on a Hot Tin Roof - 1990
- Lip Gloss - 1993
- Baseball Girls - 1995
References
edit- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ a b Jim Levesque, "Lois Siegel's Stunt People". Cinema Canada, November 1989.
- ^ a b c Bill Brownstein, "Picking up ball Burns dropped; Montreal director chronicles role of women in baseball". Montreal Gazette, March 21, 1990.
- ^ a b c Martha Jones, "Introducing Lois Siegel: Overdosed on energy". Cinema Canada, January/February 1979.
- ^ "Lois Siegel's A 20th Century Chocolate Cake". Cinema Canada, July/August 1983.
- ^ Bruce Bailey, "Filming Tommy Tricker more than child's play for Montrealer Rubbo". Montreal Gazette, July 24, 1987.
- ^ Jay Scott, "Jesus swept: an even dozen Genies". The Globe and Mail, March 21, 1990.
- ^ Jay Stone, "Documentary provides glimpse of world most never see". Ottawa Citizen, June 15, 1994.
- ^ a b Anne Sutherland, "Shooting Stars: Lois Siegel's photographs are testimony to time spent on movie sets around town". Montreal Gazette, March 13, 1997.
- ^ Paul Gessell, "Soul catcher". Ottawa Citizen, July 13, 2004.
- ^ a b Andrea Lewandoski, "Taking time to make a difference: Lois Siegel shows you can fight city hall". Capital Xtra!, November 3, 2004.
- ^ "Lois Siegel". MediaQueer.
External links
edit- Lois Siegel at IMDb