Join us for a Labor Day screening of Lizzie Borden’s seminal classic, Working Girls, on September 7 at 7:30 pm at Somerville Theatre.

Sex work is portrayed with radical nonjudgment in Lizzie Borden’s immersive, richly detailed look at the rhythms and rituals of society’s most stigmatized profession. Inspired by the experiences of the sex workers Borden met while making her underground feminist landmark Born in Flames, Working Girls reveals the textures of a day in the life of Molly (Louise Smith), a photographer working part-time in a Manhattan brothel, as she juggles a steady stream of clients, balances relationships with her coworkers with the demands of an ambitious madam, and above all fights to maintain her sense of self in a business in which the line between the personal and the professional is all too easily blurred. In viewing prostitution through the lens of labor, Borden boldly desensationalizes the subject, offering an empathetic, humanizing, often humorous depiction of women for whom this work is just another day at the office.

New 4K restoration by the Criterion Collection and UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Sundance Institute.

Following the film, Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective members Violeta Félix, Christell, and Mary Carol will discuss the legacy and impact of Working Girls on the portrayal of sex work/ers in film, how its themes pertain to the fight today for sex workers rights, and how we can improve the working conditions for sex workers today.