Working Girls

Director: Lizzie Borden
Screenwriters: Lizzie Borden, Sandra Kay

Institute History

  • 1987 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Working Girls is a frank, poignant, powerful and often humorous look at women working in a high-class brothel in mid-town Manhattan. The women in the film are, for the most part, in control of their lives and their work. Their decision to work as prostitutes is shown as an economic alternative in many ways an extension and exaggeration of “normal”heterosexual codes and rituals. Following the group of women as they make their away through the course of a day and a night in the claustrophobic apartment, we see them less as stereotypes and more as people, caring people with feelings, concerns, goals and dreams.

We also see them in a typical labor-management dispute with the Betty Crocker-like businesswoman/madame, an incessant shopper who pushes “her girls” to the limit. What emerges is a nonexploitative film, told from a woman’s point of view, full of insight, compassion and honesty. Disturbing and staight-forward, Working Girls never winces from the truth.

— Lawrence Smith

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]