Arts and Entertainment

Free screening of documentary about Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A free screening of the documentary “Bright Lights” about the mother-daughter relationship of the late Debbie Reynolds and the late Carrie Fisher will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, in Carnegie Cinema on the University Park campus of Penn State.

The film’s editor, Sheila Shirazi, will participate in a question-and-answer session after the screening, which is sponsored by the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies.

“Bright Lights” made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. It also screened at the Telluride and New York film festivals before later appearing on HBO. The film provides a glimpse at a family’s complicated love with an intimate perspective produced through interviews as well as vintage family films.

Fisher, best known for her role as Princess Leia in “Star Wars,” died Dec. 27, 2016. Reynolds, whose career spanned decades in entertainment with iconic movie roles (“Singing in the Rain”) and even a Las Vegas act late in life, died a day after her daughter on Dec. 28, 2016. They lived in the same Hollywood compound, which serves as a setting for parts of the documentary.

Along with “Bright Lights,” Shirazi’s credits include duties as assistant editor for the Academy Award-winning “Inside Job” and the groundbreaking PBS series “Women, War & Peace.” She has been a contributing editor at the Sundance Documentary Edit Lab. 

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Last Updated June 2, 2021