An East Side condo apartment is the workspace for women on day shifts or night shifts—as prostitutes, for madam Ellen McElduff; lesbian Louise Smith (Independent Spirit Award-nominated for her only feature starring role) keeps her profession a secret from her partner and children. The daring in Borden’s rarely-screened follow-up to Born in Flames is not so much in the explicit content as in the dispassionate depiction of both the workers’ internal interactions and the dynamics of the male/female transactions.

With Lizzie Borden in person July 17