The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
4 Little Girls
When
Wed 22 Jul 2026
See below for additional related events
Initially intended as a feature drama, Lee’s first documentary had been percolating since 1983 when he wrote to the father of Carol Denise McNair, one of the girls (alongside Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson) murdered in the Ku Klux Klan’s 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.
Eventually earning the victims’ families’ trust, Lee decided the story was best told through non-fiction. The resulting chronicle of four young lives cut short is a brilliant and understandably sombre document, supported by a thematically appropriate soundtrack featuring John Coltrane, Joan Baez and Max Roach.
35mm print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, Hollywood.
Films in this program
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
