Wildcat – With Guest Talk by Irwin Streight

Sunday June 23 @ 4pm: Join us for a screening of Wildcat accompanied by a talk by Irwin Streight (Department of English, Royal Military College). Prof. Streight is the author of the upcoming book Flannery at the Grammys, about Flannery O’Connor’s extensive influence on a suite of celebrated contemporary singer-songwriters and pop music groups. Buy Tickets.

The Screening Room will have additional screenings of Wildcat (with no guest talk), later in the week.

Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke, and starring a all-star cast including Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, and Vincent D’Onofrio, Wildcat invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing?

In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

In the hands of such passionate talents, Wildcat becomes a curious and purposeful project that goes beyond the guidelines of traditional ‘biopics’ to try to give life to O’Connor’s most intimate thoughts.

Los Angeles Times