I’ve Heard The Mermaids Singing: A Queer Film Classic

A Queer Film Classic on I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, an ethereal feminist 1987 film by Canadian director Patricia Rozema about Polly, a socially awkward secretary whose life is turned upside down when her former lover Mary, an artist, comes back into her life. The author places the film, praised by Camille Paglia and named one of Canada’s ten best films by the Toronto International Film Festival, in the context of the history of feminist cinema: the sparse category of films directed, written, and starring women. Julia Mendenhall is an assistant professor at Temple University, where she teaches transnational film and queer theory for the English department and women’s studies program.