JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCE
A FILM BY VARDA BAR-KAR
During the 1960s, as a teenager, acclaimed American singer-songwriter Janis Ian used to jam with Jimi Hendrix in Greenwich Village bars and partied with Janis Joplin, who jokingly called herself “the other Janis.” During the 70s, Janis befriended Bruce Springsteen as they simultaneously recorded albums at the same studio. In the 80s, she played duets with Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson in Nashville.
She lived the adventurous life of a rock star. At the same time, she contributed hit songs to the American pop canon that addressed severe social problems, winning the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She encountered her share of setbacks and stress: there have been times when she’s been dropped by her record label, struggled to land gigs, and lived on a fast-food diet.
Janis Ian and the Art of Song (working title) will chronicle the singer’s epic life journey beginning with her Jewish childhood on a chicken farm in New Jersey; her youthful struggle with notoriety following her hit “Society’s Child" (about an interracial love); her ascent to fame with the single “At Seventeen" (about body shaming); and her release of the disruptive album Breaking Silence which she leveraged to come out publicly about her loving relationship with her wife Pat Snyder.
With access to Janis Ian’s incredible body of music, her vast archive, family, friends, famed collaborators, and music journalists, we're creating an in-depth musical film, told in three acts, with the intimacy of a home movie set against a sweeping historical context--all visioned through a contemporary lens.