Full Description
Based on an acclaimed novella by Tillie Olsen, the rarely screened Tell Me a Riddle was not only the first dramatic feature directed by this year’s Freedom of Expression Award honoree Lee Grant but was also among the films that showcased at the first SFJFF in 1981. Oscar winning screen legends Melvyn Douglas (Ninotchka, Being There) and Lila Kedrova (Zorba the Greek) are David and Eva, an elderly Jewish émigré couple coping with the reality that they can no longer care for the large home where they raised their seven children. Still haunted by memories from her native Russia, Eva bickers with David who wants to sell their house and move into a retirement home. Trying to rekindle their troubled marriage, the duo set off on a road trip, ending up in a shimmering late-1970s San Francisco to stay with their spirited granddaughter (a luminous Days of Heaven era Brooke Adams). Yet even as seeming tragedy looms over the lives of Eva and David, an old spark brings them close together once again. Director Grant’s hidden gem is a moving triumph, buoyed by the emotionally charged performances of Douglas, Kedrova and Adams and a wondrous time capsule of a San Francisco that has passed into time.
Filmmaker Bio(s)
Lee Grant appeared in such classic films as In the Heat of the Night, Valley of the Dolls, Plaza Suite, Portnoy’s Complaint, and Shampoo, for which she won an Academy Award. She was also in the 1960s cult classic television series Peyton Place, for which she won an Emmy. She went on to a three-decade career as a director, which includes directing the Oscar-winning documentary Down and Out in America. Born in New York City as Lyova Haskell Rosenthal, she was the only child of Jewish immigrants. By the age of 24, she was a Broadway star, Vogue “It Girl,” and an Academy Award nominee for her role in Detective Story. It all came crashing down in the 1950s, when she landed on Hollywood’s blacklist and was prevented from working in film and television for 12 years. In 1989, Women in Film honored Grant with their first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. An adjunct professor at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, she lives in New York City with her husband.
