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Charleen

Charleen is an observational documentary film directed and shot by Ross McElwee, about his friend and former poetry teacher, Charleen Swansea. McElwee follows Charleen over a month in her life in North Carolina, where she still teaches poetry, engages in interracial flirtation (to the titillation of her students), and prepares to sell a personal letter from Ezra Pound in which Pound bemoans Charleen's impending marriage.

McElwee shot the film as part of his graduate thesis at MIT, where he studied under Richard Leacock and Edward Pincus. The film is 59 minutes long.