Online with SFFP: C.A. Lajeune and Britain’s Lady Film Critics, August 15, 2025, 12pm PST

In 1922, with a weekly column in the Manchester Guardian, C. A. Lejeune became one of Britain’s first lay film critics, and began to define what that could mean. Soon, she was the best of the bunch, and the funniest, too – but her opinions often became controversial. This talk will look at Lejeune’s passion for cinema and her remarkable career, which included three decades at The Observer, and becoming a fixture on BBC radio and TV. It will also introduce some of the many women who joined her in giving British film criticism a “womanly” voice from the 1920s to the 1950s. Chief among these is her fellow “Sunday Lady” Dilys Powell, her brilliant counterpart at the Sunday Times, who outlasted them all.

About the Presenter
Pamela Hutchinson is a freelance film critic. She is the author of books including BFI Film Classics on The Red Shoes and Pandora’s Box and her work has appeared in the Guardian, Empire and the Criterion Collection. She is a columnist for Sight and Sound and edits the Weekly Film Bulletin. Her curation projects include seasons on Marlene Dietrich and Asta Nielsen for BFI Southbank. She lives on the south coast of England and indulges her obsession with silent cinema at SilentLondon.co.uk.

The event is free; registration is required.

For more information on SFFP (The San Francisco Film Preserve), click here.