The Gold Diggers + Short: The London Story
classified UPlease note: This was screened in July 2025
“A feminist sci-fi musical extravaganza… Remains consistently fresh and unpredictable”- Sight and Sound
Made with an all female crew, Sally Potter’s (Orlando, The Tango Lesson) ground-breaking first feature is a key film of early ‘80s feminist cinema.
Whilst the season foregrounds Channel 4’s revitalisation of British filmmaking in the 1980s it should not be forgotten that both the Arts Council and the British Film Institute were supporting experimental filmmaking and “new and uncommercial filmmakers”.
Sally Potter’s roots in experimental dance and the artists’ filmmaking hub of the London Filmmaker’s Co-op led to support first from the Arts Council for her short films then a partnership with the BFI for her bold and radical debut feature. Starring Julie Christie and shot in rich black and white by Babette Mangold (Chantal Akerman’s cinematographer) The Gold Diggers is in striking cinematic provocation.
Made with an all-woman crew, it embraces a radical and experimental narrative structure. Celeste (Colette Laffont) is a computer clerk in a bank who becomes fascinated by the relationship between gold and power. Ruby (Christie) is an enigmatic film star in quest of her childhood, her memories and the truth about her own identity. As their paths cross they come to sense that there could be a link between the male struggle for economic supremacy and the female ideal of mysterious but impotent beauty.
With thanks to the BFI National Archive.