Northern Lights - Camera d’Or-Winning Film Shot by Judy Irola, ASC Gets 4K Release

Photographed in stark black-and-white by Judy Irola, ASC and directed by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, the indie feature Northern Lights (1978) — shot in extreme winter conditions in North Dakota — was a fictionalized account of the populist Nonpartisan League political movement of 1915, which empowered local immigrant farmers against East Coast corporations. Amid this paroxysm of class tension, two young lovers find themselves swept up in the tide.

The film, presented by Kino Lorber and restored in 4K by IndieCollect and Metropolis Post, will screen at Lincoln Center, with showings on May 23 and 24 followed by Q&As with Hanson and Nilsson. A national expansion to select cities will follow.

Irola knew she had a lot to prove during the Northern Lights shoot, but also had encouragement. “Rob and John never criticized me,” she told interviewer Pamela Cohn. “I’d never shot a feature in my life! We didn’t see any footage for weeks. No one treated me like a second-class citizen. When you have that kind of support when you’re that young [29], it’s amazing. And then when we came back and looked at the footage, they treated me like I was God. With that kind of support, you go a million miles; I worked so hard on that film — why wouldn’t I? It was a huge challenge; I was young; it was fun; it was goddamned cold, and I was working with these people who had total confidence in me.”

Northern Lights won the Camera d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Regarding Irola’s camerawork, a San Francisco Chronicle critic noted, “As the camera moves from the vast wheat fields to the people, it evokes memories of the great photography studies of sharecroppers and migrant workers by Dorothea Lange in the 1930s.”

Irola, who passed away in 2021, was one of the first female members of the ASC — invited to join in 1995 with the recommendation of members Woody Omens, Steven Poster and Robert Primes — and made an indelible mark by inspiring more women to seek work behind the camera.

In 1999, Irola was appointed head of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts cinematography program, designing the curriculum and supervising 26 other members of the faculty. In 2005, she was named the Conrad L. Hall Chair in Cinematography and Color Timing, a position endowed by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. In 2018, she retired from USC, where she taught cinematography for 26 years and was head of cinematography for 15.

You’ll find Irola’s inspiring story here.