Set in the cutthroat, boy-dominated world of high school debate where tomorrow’s leaders are groomed, GIRL TALK tells the timely story of five girls on a diverse, top-ranked Massachusetts high school debate team as they strive to become the best debaters in the United States on their own terms.
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LUCIA LYNN SMALL – 1963-2022
It is with profound sadness we share the news that Lucia Small lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on Saturday, November 19, 2022. She passed peacefully with dear friends and family by her side, and she lived fully to the last minute.
As an unflinching feminist and champion of women and girls, making GIRL TALK fulfilled a lifelong dream of Lucia’s to focus on the power of the female voice. As she told Ms. Magazine last June, “It has been my struggle, my whole life, trying to find a voice that I felt comfortable with—that wasn’t alienating, but at the same time, wasn’t apologetic. I’m still navigating that. But GIRL TALK was a way for me to look at—when do girls, young women speak up or begin to shut down?” It’s easy to imagine that completing this film fortified Lucia to fight her terminal diagnosis, and along the way she embodied so much love, kindness and ferocity of spirit.
We are all so grateful Lucia was able to see the film to completion, participate in many screenings on the east and west coasts, and engage with audiences who loved GIRL TALK, including the honor of winning the Audience Choice Award at the Boston Independent Film Festival in May. Lucia was also able to catch the live broadcast premiere of GIRL TALK on GBH just weeks before she passed. Realizing another lifelong dream, we just finalized an agreement for the film to broadcast nationally on PBS World in 2023.
Lucia leaves behind an incredibly dedicated group of friends and so many admirers in the film community.
“A very good case could be made for Lucia being the most important documentarian in New England in the last twenty years, certainly challenging the province of Frederick Wiseman, Errol Morris, and other male filmmakers. All four of her feature documentaries hit the bullseye,” says film critic Gerald Peary. Read more about Lucia’s career and accomplishments in these moving tributes in her Boston Globe obituary and from film critics Peter Keough and Ty Burr.
Lucia Small, who brought women’s and girls’ voices to forefront in documentaries, dies at 59
Arts Remembrance: Lucia Small, 1963-2022
Lucia Small 1963-2022 ––Farewell to a beloved Boston filmmaker whose work deserves a wider audience.