The Gloria of Your Imagination (2024–2025) by Jennifer Reeves
Thursday, January 15, 2026, 7:30 pm
Jennifer Reeves: The Gloria of Your Imagination
Jennifer Reeves in person
Presented in association with Gray Area
Admission: $15 General / $12 Cinematheque Members and Members of Gray Area
Event tickets here
Cinematheque rings in the new year welcoming filmmaker Jennifer Reeves, in person to present The Gloria of Your Imagination, an evocatively edited double-projected 16mm/digital mash-up exploring sexuality, gendered power relationships and motherhood in the context of the burgeoning field of psychotherapy in 1960s America. NOTE: Reeves will appear at Shapeshifters Cinema, Oakland on Wednesday, January 14 to celebrate the Re:Voir Video release of When It Was Blue: Selected Works 1992–2022, a Blu-ray release including ten earlier works by Reeves; details here. When It Was Blue: Selected Works will be available for perusal and purchase at both screenings.
The Gloria of Your Imagination: In 1964, 30-year-old waitress and single mother Gloria Szymanski agreed to engage in psychotherapy sessions on film with three of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, each a leader in a competing therapeutic school—Carl Rogers (Client Centered Therapy), Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy) and Albert Ellis (Rational-Emotive Therapy). These filmed sessions were released to the public in 1965 (under dubious ethical circumstances) as Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (dir. Everett L. Shostrom). In Gloria…, Reeves distills and expands this 1960s educational film with a superimposed montage. Excerpts from Gloria’s unguarded sessions are woven into other film artifacts from her lifetime. Newsreel clips, home movies, commercials, cold war propaganda and educational films from the 1930s to the 1970s conjure the absurdity, rage and profound revelations that arise as Gloria bares her secrets to the experts, to be exposed publicly against her consent. Daughter of Polish immigrants, Gloria’s spiritual journey takes flight from the confining therapy chamber. Reeves’ kaleidoscopic montage lays bare the unspoken threads of influence in Gloria’s struggle. From Catholic schoolgirl to teenage bride and psychotherapy patient, Gloria forges her own way and principled self, becoming a remarkably independent thinker and generous soul before her life is cut short.
In 1964, a 30-year-old divorced waitress named Gloria agreed to be filmed having sessions with three different therapists. She was told it was for a training film and would only be shown in academic settings. Her responses to each of them are unguarded and incredibly honest, expressing worries about being a good parent while still wanting to have sex, even with men she knows she won’t marry. In many ways, she is a progressive and modern woman who would not be out of place in 2025. Director Jennifer Reeves contextualizes the therapy sessions by mixing in biographical information about Gloria, along with representations of women at the time from industrial films, commercials, and home movies. As an audience, we sit in judgement of the three different styles of therapy for how we think it’s reacting to and helping her. After the sessions are sold to PBS without her consent, she realizes her admissions and vulnerabilities are now out and available to people she knows, and we start to question our own privileged position as a viewer. Through it all, her honesty and dignity shine through. Of all the documentaries I watched this year, this one has stuck with me the longest. (Andy Spletzer, Seattle International Film Festival)
Brooklyn film artist Jennifer Reeves (b. 1971, Sri Lanka) has made 25+ filmworks to date, from experimental shorts and features to multiple projection performances scored by live music. Reeves’ visceral 16mm film works immerse viewers in intricate, unfamiliar cinematic territory. They investigate themes of mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, and the beauty and decay of the natural world. A Blu-ray collection of ten of her films—When It Was Blue: Selected Works 1992–2022—was released by Re:Voir Video late in 2025 and will be available at screenings. The collection will be available for streaming from Re:Voir in 2026.