REVIEWS
Reviews from Festivals
“As a film it is a masterpiece of the short story form.”
“Rapidly sketched characters and deftly conveyed hints and gestures illuminate a whole way of life, and depths of unconscious oppression, patiently borne.”
“The playing of two superb unknown actresses - Diane de Lorian and Dorothy Lancaster, both of whom have faces able to suggest lifetimes of tough exertions and reluctant patience - eclipse practically any feature film performances that come to mind.”
David Robinson, The London Times
“In a brief thirty minutes the film evokes the hardships and loneliness of these small farmers as well as creating an atmosphere of riveting suspense through snippets of conversation.”
Melbourne University Star
“The talk of the [Women in the Director's Chair film] festival was …the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration screening of the feminist classic (and still unforgivingly moving) 'A Jury of Her Peers' by Sally Heckel. The packed house for Sally Heckel's screening almost didn't let her end the Q&A session.”
Brian Bergen-Aurand, Sex and Gender Editor, Clamor Magazine
Reviews from Broadcast
“…brief, brutal and heart-breaking. Don't miss it.”
Harriet Van Horne, Newsday
“…a 30-minute gem about a murder... It's been a long time since a TV program moved me in quite the way this one did. It's like a page out of a John Steinbeck novel."
Kay Gardella, New York Daily News
Personal comments
“I saw your film in the fall of 1989 - it was shown in a graduate course in Adult Education at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. A student used it - a film version, not video - in a presentation about women's ways of knowing. Good presentation, and absolutely amazing film - I still remember it quite clearly after 15 years”.
Jerry Hinbest, Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, British Columbia
“A Jury of Her Peers was amazing, visually and dramatically. Each frame, each line, was a prize. But it was the horrifying vision of the ethical blinders with which many of us grope through life that is the film's real gift.”
John Perkins, Writer/Documentary Producer
“[A Jury of Her Peers] is amazing. I loved the texture of the piece, that wallpaper, the woman in the hat, the emptiness of the land.”
Toni Schlesinger, Writer/Object theater performer