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SFA to screen ‘Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story’


NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of the documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” at 7 p.m. Friday, June 7, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

Directed by Alexandra Dean, “Bombshell” brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day.

Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman, was a technological trailblazer who perfected a secure radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes during WWII.

In the film, Dean weaves interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Lamarr speaking on the record about her incredible life. She speaks of her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish émigré, her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film “Ecstasy,” her glittering Hollywood life and finally her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions. The film also chronicles her latter years when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten, according to the Zeitgeist Films website.

Bombshell is a 2017 Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber. The film was an audience award winner at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, the Adrienne Shelley Excellence in Filmmaking Award winner at the Nantucket Film Festival, an audience award winner in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, best film at the Scottsdale International Film Festival and winner at the Women Film Critics Circle Awards. The film runs 88 minutes.

This screening is part of the School of Art’s monthly Friday Film Series and is sponsored in part by William Arscott, Nacogdoches Film Festival, Karon Gillespie, Mike Mollot, David Kulhavy, John and Kristen Heath, Galleria Z, Jill Carrington, Jean Stephens, Jim and Mary Neal, Richard Orton and Main Street Nacogdoches.

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.