Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. From a humorous account of Wilder’s stint as a hired dancing companion in a posh Berlin hotel and his dispatches from the international film scene to his astute profiles of writers, performers, and political figures, these pieces offer fresh insights into the creative mind of one of classical Hollywood’s most revered writer-directors. As a freelancer, Wilder covered everything: big-city sensations, jazz performances, film and theater openings, dance, photography, and all manner of mass entertainment. 

Join film historian Noah Isenberg and award-winning translator Shelley Frisch for a conversation, rich in anecdotes and animated by some of the writer’s most colorful passages, about their book Billy Wilder on Assignment and its enduring place in our imagination.

Copies of the book can be purchased at the event. Followed by a book signing.