Since 1996 the Women’s Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) of New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) has preserved a number of significant experimental and animated works, many of which reflect pioneering approaches and unique voices. This series will showcase a selection of these works, many of which have been preserved in collaboration with Anthology.
PROGRAM DETAILS:
PROGRAM 1: EXPANDING NOTIONS OF TIME, SPACE, AND REALITY
Friday, June 21st, 7:30pm.
The makers of these films have manipulated time, space, and/or motion to give us a broader view of reality. Their varied approaches include optical printing, animation, drawing and scratching on the film negative, radical editing choices, and moving camera.
Divinations
Storm de Hirsch
1964, 6 min.
Utilizing hand-altered film stock and live footage, negative and positive images of daily objects, a chant of a Maori medicine man, and music performed on a Jew’s harp, the film takes the viewer to a psychic, ritualistic place.
Bent Time
Barbara Hammer
1984, 20 min.
A film constantly in motion, BENT TIME journeys across the U.S. linking disparate historic and geographic places, past and present, and uses single-frame optical printing to slow down and speed up motion to “bend” time.
Meditation on Violence
Maya Deren
1948, 13 min.
As a Chinese martial artist performs, time and space become fluid through moving camera, editing, and rearrangement of the sequence of movements.
Homage to Magritte
Anita Thacher
1974, 10 min.
(pictured at upper right)
A woman’s interior monologue is evoked through optically printed juxtapositions of images of water and interiors, and of glimpses of a woman, the sky, and the universe seen through a window and a mirror.
Traveling Light
Jane Aaron
1985, 2 min.
Sunlight moving through the interior of a house during the course of a day culminates in an unexpected revelation in this animated film.
An Algorithm
Bette Gordon
1977, 10 min.
In this structuralist film, the arc of a dive into a swimming pool is dissected and repeated through optical printing to examine the relationship between space and time, and the nature of motion itself.
PROGRAM 2: REFLECTIONS, DREAMS, AND EXPERIMENTS
Saturday, June 22nd, 5:45pm.
These films represent changing views on the possibilities of womanhood from different viewpoints.
Windy Day
Faith & John Hubley
1967, 9 min.
In the animated film, two young girls view love and marriage through fairytale fantasies.
Doppelganger
Peggy Ahwesh
1987, 5 min.
An experimental portrait, DOPPELGANGER shows a woman looking at her past and toward the future.
Women’s Happy Time Commune
Sheila Paige
1972, 42 min.
Billed as an “improv-Western,” WOMEN’S HAPPY TIME COMMUNE shows women going to the Old West to start a commune where they will live without men.
Sisters!
Barbara Hammer
1973, 8 minutes.
A collage of documentary footage, poetry, and dreams, Barbara Hammer envisions a new future for lesbians.
Lisa Crafts
1976, 5 min.
The animated DESIRE PIE focuses on a man and a woman in a humorous and joyous romp showing what female desire can be.
Special Guests:
Lisa Crafts, Filmmaker
Sheila Paige, Filmmaker
PROGRAM 3: MARIE MENKEN AND HELEN HILL: CAMERA ROLLS
Saturday, June 22, 8:00pm.
Unedited footage of two distinctive filmmakers, provides insight into each maker’s thought process and what informs her completed works.
The Gravediggers From Guadix
Marie Menken
1960, 45 min.
In 1958 Marie Menken traveled to Spain in the company of Kenneth Anger. They visited the Alhambra in Granada where she shot her film ARABESQUE FOR KENNETH ANGER. The gorgeous Kodachrome footage in this compilation was shot at the same time for this Menken-titled yet unfinished project. In 2003, Martina Kudláček discovered the original, unedited reels among Menken’s belongings held by the family. GRAVEDIGGERS is a remarkable example of Menken’s fluid handheld movement as well as an instructive peek at how she intuitively conceived her work behind the camera.
Helen Hill’s Home Movies
2000-2005, 23 min.
These unedited rolls of live-action footage shot by the animator capture images of New Orleans rituals and events, and glimpses of several neighborhoods both before Hurricane Katrina and in its aftermath. The footage, too, was a victim of the storm and despite preservation shows clear signs of water damage.
This three-program series is guest-curated by
Ann Deborah Levy, Co-Chair of the
Women’s Film Preservation Fund Steering Committee.
Special thanks
Mark Johnson (Harvard Film Archive)
Mark Toscano & Edda Manriquez (Academy Film Archive)
Katie Trainor (MoMA).
The Women’s Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) is the only program in the world dedicated to preserving the cultural legacy of women in the industry through preserving films made by women. Founded in 1995 by NYWIFT in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), WFPF has preserved more than 130 American films, across all genres, in which women have played key creative roles. The WFPF is rewriting the film history books, by saving one moving picture at a time.
(Production still from “Homage to Magritte”, Dir. Anita Thacher)
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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
