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Like Pride Of Place, Theatre Girls was also a school project for Longinotto. This final piece follows the residents of a hostel for elderly and destitute women in Soho, London—the only one of its kind at the time. Longinotto and partner Claire Pollak lived for nearly three months in the hostel’s decrepit townhouse, garnering the trust of its disenfranchised, largely drug-addicted and alcoholic occupants. One woman, who resembles an aged Lauren Bacall with a distinctly upper-class accent, opens up to movingly describe her battle with the bottle. Not all are as happy about the filming, however; the filmmakers often had to dodge projectiles fired at them by the hostel’s feisty cook. In what will later be recognized as a signature style, Longinotto observes these women without judgment and finds the humour and humanity in situations and characters that might otherwise be seen as tragic. -Shannon Abel