Bette Gordon
Bette Gordon (born 1950) is an American independent filmmaker associated with the New York No Wave scene of the early 1980s. She began making experimental shorts in Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin in the mid-1970s before moving to Manhattan in 1980 and entering a downtown world that mixed Sonic Youth and John Lurie with Nan Goldin, Jim Jarmusch, and Kathy Acker. Her landmark feature Variety (1983) — a feminist neo-noir about a young woman selling tickets at a 42nd Street porn theater who becomes obsessed with a customer, scripted by Kathy Acker — premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight and has since been described as a feminist answer to Vertigo. She has continued to direct features and shorts, including Luminous Motion and Handsome Harry, and teaches at Columbia University's School of the Arts; her work is held in the collections of MoMA, the Whitney, and the BFI.