Lee + Intro and Q&A with Antony Penrose

Kate Winslet is remarkable in this partial biopic of the American photographer Lee Miller, adapted from the 1985 biography The Lives of Lee Miller by her son Antony Penrose. Miller, more than most, understood the vulnerability of being a woman in front of a camera. A model since childhood (first for her father, a keen amateur snapper, then as a fashion model, then as a muse and artistic collaborator with the surrealist artist Man Ray), Miller learned about photography from both sides of the lens. She knew from experience that taking a picture can be a kind of theft, a one-way transaction in which the subject gives a part of themselves but receives very little in return.

'Lee' follows her experiences as a war correspondent at the front lines in WWII on a mission to uncover the hidden truths of the Third Reich. Told in 1977 to an interviewer in a series of flashbacks, we see the crimes of Nazi Germany through her lens and how the trauma of what she saw shaped the rest of her life.

Kate Winslet insisted her film about Lee Miller must have a female director. This is Ellen Kuras' directorial debut, with all the ingredients to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the most influential Second World War movies of all time.

For the Friday evening screening we are delighted to welcome Antony Penrose, Lee Miller's son to introduce the screening. A film maker, photographer, author, artist, photo-curator, and co-founder of the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection, Antony's photographic career began at an early age when peering through the viewfinder of his mother Lee Miller's Rolleiflex camera. We are thrilled to welcome him to the Electric Palace to introduce the film and take questions afterwards. He will be selling copies of his book The Lives of Lee Miller, and sharing insights into the film, and growing up among the Surrealists in East Sussex.

Farley's House and Gallery: The Home of the Surrealists in Upper Dicker, East Sussex homes the Lee Miller archives. Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and their son Antony Penrose’s Sussex home became a meeting place for some of the leading figures from the world of 20th century modern art and is now open as a living museum and art gallery. https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/

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