GUGGENHEIM SYMPOSIUM WITH LEE GRANT Conversations

Watch Lee Grant’s Oscar-winning documentary DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA

Movie lovers know Lee Grant primarily as a brilliant actor with a distinguished career, including four Oscar® nominations, from her 1952 nod for DETECTIVE STORY to her win for SHAMPOO in 1976. Fewer actually know Grant for her career as a director, a path she pursued by first enrolling in the inaugural class of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women.

Behind the camera, Grant quickly turned to making documentary films for PBS, HBO and others, bringing to the screen real American stories covering issues and topics that are as powerful and relevant today as they were over thirty years ago – sex discrimination, the homeless, farmers’ rights and the transgender community. Her groundbreaking work in documentary earned Grant a second Oscar® for her HBO film DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA.

Now, AFI DOCS is proud to shine an overdue spotlight on Grant’s impressive achievements as an actress, activist and a documentary master with the 2020 Guggenheim Symposium. Grant will be featured in an in-depth conversation moderated by Washington Post Chief Film Critic Ann Hornaday as she recalls her years as a documentarian and the forces that drove her to take up this second – but never secondary – career.
–Michael Lumpkin