Liz Purchell is shaping the canon. She believes repertory, restoration, and distribution are the pillars of it — she is an expert in each one. Her website neatly displays all her credits as a film programmer in Austin, Texas, NYC, LA, Chicago, and more. She specializes in screening queer, adult, and genre films with a focus on expanding audiences for largely unseen films. In the Home Video field, she’s worked as a curator, producing bonus features and sourcing elements for featurettes. She just released The People’s Joker on home video (including VHS!), she could be heard on commentary tracks like Arrow Video’s The Silence of the Lambs, and she’s written booklet essays attached to physical media releases like Vinegar Syndrome’s Showgirls. She also personally handled the 2K scan of a 16mm print of The Heartbreak Kid which Alamo Drafthouse screened on DCP in many of their venues nationwide.
Liz has been programming the weekly ongoing series WEIRD WEDNESDAY at the Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Brooklyn since earlier this year. In September she’s screening all 35mm prints of these titles:
In this episode, get to learn all about Liz’s career journey as a film programmer from her humble beginnings organizing screenings in the back of a pasta shop in Tampa, FL, to making a name for herself in the Austin, TX film scene, including her latest leap relocating to NYC to program for IFC Center, Alamo Drafthouse, and more.
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Credits: Produced by Alec Rodriguez, original artwork by Cristina Montes, original music by Jeremy Bullen.
NEXT ON THE POD: While we continue to celebrate Godzilla’s 70th anniversary in the year of our kaiju lord 2024 — in September, Spectacle film programmer Steve McFarlane reexamines the trilogy of GAMERA films directed by Shūsuke Kaneko between 1994 and 1999!
Ep. 020: WEIRD WEDNESDAY, Pt. 1 with LIZ PURCHELL