A tribute to Women Artists Filmmakers, including films by Sara-Kathryn Arledge, Doris Chase, Silvianna Goldsmith, Storm De Hirsch, Marie Menken, Carolee Schneemann and Rosalind Schneider. Programmed by MM Serra, Director of the Film-Makers Cooperative.
The survey will commence with a rarely screened classic from the early 1940’s, Introspection, by Sara-Kathryn Arledge. In his book The Exploding Eye, Wheeler Winston Dixon has written, “Along with Maya Deren and Marie Menken, Sara Kathryn Arledge is one of the foremothers of the American experimental cinema.” This exquisite print of a film that deserves far more attention than it has received, presented by M.M. Serra, is a fitting start to the three subjective programs spanning 60 years and culminating with brand new work from Shannon Plumb and Martha Colburn. Marie Losier will conclude the series by presenting another gem, Star Eaters, Peggy Ahwesh’s brilliant 24-minute narrative.
The series is not intended as an exhaustive survey. The purpose is to extend past and current efforts to increase interest in experimental cinema by women, to inspire further study, and to bolster efforts to conserve films and videos by the artists presented. M.M. Serra’s program, “Women in Experimental Film,” which was presented during the Wack! Exhibition at P.S.1 in March 2008 is a precedent upon which the series builds. The screenings are also inspired by the publication of Women’s Experimental Cinema in 2007 by Duke University Press, edited by Robin Blaetz.
For more information and a complete list of films and videos to be shown, please visit: http://womencinema.wordpress.com
M.M. Serra is a filmmaker, educator, curator and Director of the Film-Makers’ Co-operative. Her film Art Parade premiered in 2007 at the Womanizer Film program at Deitch Projects in Soho. She is featured in “Profiles from the Edge” in Swoon Magazine (2007, Issue 3) and her own work, as well as her curated programs, have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York; The Centre Georges Pompidou and the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris; the London Film Festival and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Serra teaches classes in Media Studies at The New School University including a seminar titled “Sexual Personae” and has recently curated the program “New York Experimental” for the Kulczyk Foundation and the Warszawa Kinolab in Poland.
Rebecca Cleman is the Director of Distribution of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI). Since joining EAI in the year 2000, she has programmed many screenings devoted to the history of video art for the New York Underground Film Festival; Ocularis, Brooklyn; Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo; Union Cinema, Milwaukee; Anthology Film Archives, and the Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Poland, among others. She has also participated in and organized a number of panels around moving image art and artists.
Marie Losier is a French-born filmmaker and film curator who lives and works in New York City, whose films and videos have been featured at numerous museums (Tate Modern, MOMA, Whitney Biennial…), galleries, festivals (Basel Art Fair 08), and biennials. Losier’s upcoming and first feature film “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye” is dedicated to Genesis P-Orridge, Lady Jaye and her band Psychic TV3 and constitutes her latest Film Portrait of leading avant garde creators including George and Mike Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman and Tony Conrad. In 2000, she became the film programmer at the French Institute / Alliance Francaise in New York City, where she presents a weekly film series. She also programs experimental films at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (now at Participant Gallery, NYC) and Ocularis in Brooklyn and programs in Europe and all over in the States.
Generous support for this program has been provided by the Scope Foundation and by A.I.R. Gallery.
Each evening is $10 and begins @ 8pm