LEE GODIE, CHICAGO FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST

Join us for the US Premiere at Chicago Filmmakers on Friday, October 15 to Sunday, October 17!

This documentary portrait of Lee Godie (nee Jamot Emily Godee), legendary within the Chicago art scene in the 1970s and 1980s, follows this Chicago-born woman who grew up during the Roaring 20s, had two failed marriages and abandoned children along the way. In the 1960s, she appeared in the Old Town and Gold Coast areas of Chicago hawking rolled up paintings, photo-booth self-portraits and pen/ink drawings. She gained notoriety and supported herself with sales from her art, declaring herself a “French Impressionist” as the long lines in front the the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1980s proved there was high demand for this style of art.

The film looks at Godie’s work and life interweaving first-hand anecdotes about Chicagoans’ encounters with the artist’s ever-changing marketing strategies, her artistic career and her rise to national newsworthy notice mixed in with previously unknown facts from her childhood, two marriages and the children she left behind. Referencing her journals and many of the early 20th century songs she loved to sing, this documentary reveals an artist, whose outward demeanor and appearance often concealed her inner fortitude and belief in her beauty. In the early 1990s, after Lee became too frail to remain on the streets, she was cared for by her second-born daughter, Bonnie, who had just recently discovered Lee was her birth mother.

Godie was a charming raconteur and roguish entrepreneur, who touched the lives of many Chicagoans. Her choice to live on the streets mimicked the birds she often painted as she flitted from place to place living life on her own terms. (2021, 74 min, USA)

Directed by Kapra Fleming

Produced by Kapra Fleming and Tom Palazzolo

A Pandora lobo estepario Production

www.leegodiemovie.com

facebook.com/leegodiemovie

WATCH THE TRAILER ➔