Virginia Film Festival

Joyce Chopra is one of the pioneering women of cinéma vérité, having worked alongside fellow filmmakers Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker. In 1963 The Saturday Evening Post sent Leacock and Chopra to make the film Happy Mothers Day about the Fischer Quintuplets, born to a rural family in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Chopra’s 1965 film Wild Ones documents the titular mid-1960s band as they recorded their first album for United Artists. Top agents and producers predicted that the Wild Ones would be “bigger than the Beatles,” but it did not quite turn out that way. When Chopra was eight months pregnant, a friend challenged her to make a film about juggling the conflicting demands of a baby, a husband, and a career. Accepting the dare, she went on to produce Joyce at 34, the first autobiographical essay film ever made. Discussion with director Joyce Chopra