Woo Woo:NYC FEMINIST FILM WEEK 2018 March 6 –11 at ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
THE WATERMELON WOMAN
NYC FEMINIST FILM WEEK 2018
March 6 – 11
The NYC Feminist Film Week presents its second annual film program committed to increasing the visibility of women and all trans and gender non-conforming filmmakers. The festival aims to foster critical dialogue among filmmakers and the general public, using queer/trans/feminist approaches to interrogate cultural constructions of gender, sexuality, race, class, age, and dis/ability.
Organized around the ongoing theme of feminist film genealogies, the series asks the following questions: What might a genealogy of feminist film look like in its ethics and aesthetics? How do feminist film practices function as forms of political and critical intervention? What strategies do they employ to unsettle and dismantle racism, heterosexism, transphobia, classism, and stigmas around sexuality, illness, and dis/ability? And how do feminist film and media practitioners articulate queer, trans, POC, working class, immigrant, dis/abled, and other marginalized experiences and identities?
Inspired by international feminist film festivals like Cineffable and the London Feminist Film Week, the NYC Feminist Film Week focuses on the social and material aspects of filmmaking, placing feminist film production within specific historical and geographical contexts while also creating connections among films, filmmakers, communities, and audiences. This year’s program pays homage to New Queer Cinema pioneer Cheryl Dunye and explores the theme of feminist film genealogies with a focus on collaboration as a feminist strategy in film and media practice. The FFW’18 line-up thus celebrates the intertextuality of film while recognizing the unique contributions of feminist film pioneers alongside new and emerging filmmakers.
Programmed by S.H. Varino.
Special thanks to Lisa Cortes, Cheryl Dunye, Kristin Hole, Joe Ippolito, Alexandra Juhasz, Aimée Mitchell, Joy Schaefer, Patricia Silva, Marc Smolowitz, Jeffrey Winter, Aubin Pictures, the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center, the Film Collaborative, First Run Features, Gender Reel, Music Box Films, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, TLA Releasing, and Women Make Movies.
The NYC Feminist Film Week is presented in partnership with Women Make Movies.
PROGRAM 1: CHERYL DUNYE: THE EARLY WORKS Cheryl Dunye in person.
Cheryl Dunye’s acclaimed first feature, THE WATERMELON WOMAN, introduced her to wider audiences in 1996, but what came before this modern-day classic? Presented here are the films that started it all – the early works that gave birth to an extraordinary and original filmmaking talent. Made with great creativity on often minuscule budgets, they represent the first chapter of Dunye’s oeuvre. In GREETINGS FROM AFRICA Dunye, playing herself, humorously experiences the mysteries of lesbian dating in the 1990s, while in THE POTLUCK AND THE PASSION sparks fly as racial, sexual, and social politics intermingle at a lesbian potluck. AN UNTITLED PORTRAIT examines Dunye’s relationship with her brother through a mixture of appropriated film footage, Super-8mm home movies, and her special brand of humor. In VANILLA SEX, Dunye asks the question: Is it who you do, or what you do? SHE DON’T FADE is self-reflexive look at the sexuality of a young black lesbian, and JANINE tells the story of a black lesbian’s relationship with a white, upper-middle-class high-school girl.
GREETINGS FROM AFRICA 1994, 8 min, 16mm THE POTLUCK AND THE PASSION 1993, 30 min, digital AN UNTITLED PORTRAIT 1993, 3 min, digital VANILLA SEX 1992, 3 min, digital SHE DON’T FADE 1991, 24 min, digital JANINE 1990, 9 min, digital
Total running time: ca. 80 min. Tue, Mar 6 at 7:15.
PROGRAM 2: CHERYL DUNYE: THE OWLS Cheryl Dunye and producer Alexandra Juhasz in person.
In THE OWLS, Dunye portrays four women struggling – over the course of a single evening – to make sense of their past lives. Iris (Guinevere Turner) and M.J. (V.S. Brodie) are a lesbian couple who live in Los Angeles, while their friends Lily (Lisa Gornick) and Carol (Dunye) are another couples with a home nearby. Iris, M.J., and Lily were all members of a once successful all-female rock band, but now that they’re middle-aged, they feel culture and politics passing them by. One evening, a young woman named Skye (Skyler Cooper) pays a visit to Lily and Carol’s home. Carol, clearly attracted, welcomes her even though they’ve never met. She soon realizes, however, that she’s made a mistake.
Cheryl Dunye THE OWLS
2010, 66 min, digital Wed, Mar 7 at 6:45.
PROGRAM 3: CHERYL DUNYE: MOMMY IS COMING Cheryl Dunye in person. This raunchy sex comedy set in the edgy underground of Berlin combines Dunye’s trademark humor and documentary aesthetic in a queer interpretation of a porn scenario where love and taboo affairs collide. Cute power femme Dylan (Lil Harlow) and studly hotel clerk Claudia (the sexy Papi Coxxx) are suffering from monogamous relationship blues. Claudia sets out on a gender-bending roller coaster through a subversive Berlin sex club while her lover has threesomes with her best friend Teo (played by the incomparable Jiz Lee). Everything comes to a climax when Dylan’s mother (world-renowned sex educator Maggie Tapert) arrives in town hell-bent on releasing some tension.
Cheryl Dunye MOMMY IS COMING
2012, 64 min, digital Wed, Mar 7 at 8:45.
PROGRAM 4: CHERYL DUNYE: THE WATERMELON WOMAN Cheryl Dunye and producer Alexandra Juhasz in person.
Now a classic of feminist film, THE WATERMELON WOMAN established Cheryl Dunye as a key figure in New Queer Cinema during the nineties, earning her a Teddy Award at the Berlinale in 1996. Cheryl (played by Dunye herself), a twenty-something black lesbian, struggles to make a documentary about Fae Richards, a beautiful and elusive 1930s black film actress popularly known as “The Watermelon Woman.” While uncovering the meaning of Fae Richards’s life, Cheryl experiences a total upheaval of her personal life, with each revelation about the Watermelon Woman evoking a flurry of new questions about herself and her future in a search for identity, community, and love. We’ll be presenting the feature film along with BROTHER FROM ANOTHER TIME. Originally created for the San Francisco Dance Film Festival Co-Laboratory, it is a collaboration between Dunye and dancer Jocquese Whitfield that pays tribute to vogue dancers of a bygone era.
Cheryl Dunye THE WATERMELON WOMAN
1996, 83 min, 16mm-to-digital
Preceded by:
Cheryl Dunye BROTHER FROM ANOTHER TIME 2014, 6.5 min, digital Thurs, Mar 8 at 7:00.
PROGRAM 5: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY FEATURE FILM: CHAVELA Catherine Gund in person.
With its lyrical structure, CHAVELA takes viewers on an evocative, thought-provoking journey through the life of iconoclastic, gender-bending singer Chavela Vargas. Her relaxed, conversational tone as she chats with a group of young lesbian admirers in footage shot by Catherine Gund in 1991 offers viewers a rare, intimate look at this iconic artist at a pivotal time in her journey. With Chavela having just returned to the stage after twelve hard years lost to alcoholism and a painful breakup with the love of her life, the interview occurs just before she heads to Spain, where she’ll rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Strong, funny, and vitally alive, she was in her prime at 71. This unique interview serves as the spine running throughout CHAVELA, which explores her fascinating life from her birth in Costa Rica to her enduring influence as an artist, gender outlaw, and life force.
Catherine Gund & Daresha Kyi CHAVELA
2017, 93 min, digital Thurs, Mar 8 at 9:15. PROGRAM 6: FEMINIST GENEALOGIES ACROSS FILM & LITERATURE Dagmar Schultz in person.
This program explores the traffic between cinematic and literary practices with a documentary about feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde, an important creative influence in Cheryl Dunye’s work. Director Dagmar Schultz weaves together archival footage and interviews to portray Lorde’s experiences and interactions during her time in Berlin from 1984-92, in particular her relation to the German Black Diaspora and her attempt to articulate and raise awareness of Afro-German identity, culture, and history. The film offers a valuable historical document about the development of an Afro-German movement and the origins of the anti-racist movement before and after German reunification, as well as a transnational perspective on Black culture and the African diaspora.
Dagmar Schultz This two-part program addresses the role of feminism in (un)doing politics by examining what happens when women challenge systematic exclusion to take positions of authority within institutions of power. Recalling a watershed event in U.S. politics, CHISHOLM ’72 – UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. Period footage and music, interviews with supporters, opponents, and observers, and Chisholm’s own commentary all illuminate her groundbreaking initiative, as well as political and social currents still very much alive today. We’ll be presenting the documentary along with Gabourey Sidibe’s directorial debut, THE TALE OF FOUR, a short film exploring themes of police brutality, domestic violence, and mass incarceration. Inspired by Nina Simone’s haunting 1966 song “Four Women,” the film weaves together narratives from female activists, sexual assault survivors, and the children of imprisoned moms to portray a contemporary American society still infected by the racism elegized by Simone over 50 years ago.
Shola Lynch CHISHOLM ’72 – UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED
2004, 76 min, digital
Preceded by:
Gabourey Sidibe THE TALE OF FOUR 2016, 23 min, digital Friday, Mar 9 at 9:00.
PROGRAM 8: POWER Carrie Hawks, Damien Luxe, Krissy Mahan, Constanza Mirré, Joanna Rytel, and Patricia Silva in person.
This short film program examines how communities and individuals inhabit, resist, and transgress gendered power structures in private and public spaces with verve and creativity. Adopting an intersectional, non-binary approach, the program aims to give visibility to marginalized experiences and identities through a range of cinematic forms and aesthetics, including animation, abstract film, music video, documentary, and experimental narrative. The first part of the program explores themes of eldercare and dis/ability, black identity, labor and exploitation, femininity, the ambivalence of parenthood and bisexual visibility. The second part begins with a journey about gender non-conformity within the context of African heritage and spirituality, and then looks into the vulnerability and isolation of abuse, culminating in a documentary about three Muslim women and their stories of sexual assault, challenging the stigma that has long suppressed the voices of survivors.
Krissy Mahan MY AUNT MAME 2017, 9 min, digital https://vimeo.com/119817775Krissy Mahan FAGGOTGIRL IN WINTER 2015, 3.5 min, digital
Carrie Hawks BLACK ENUF* 2016, 23 min, digital
Damien Luxe WORKING GIRL BLUES 2009, 4 min, digital
Signe Baumane WOMAN 2002, 10 min, digital
Joanna Rytel STAY-UPS 2017, 11 min, digital
Patricia Silva A FEELING MORE THAN A PICTURE 2018, 10 min, digital
[short break]
Seyi Adebanjo OYA: SOMETHING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO WEST AFRICA! 2015, 30 min, digital
Constanza Mirré I 2017, 2 min, digital
Nadya Ali BREAKING SILENCE 2017, 40 min, digital
Total running time: ca. 150 min. Sat, Mar 10 at 5:00.
PROGRAM 9: FEMINISTS (UN)DO POLITICS PART 2
This two-part program addresses the role of feminism in (un)doing politics by examining what happens when women challenge systematic exclusion to take positions of authority within institutions of power. THE JUDGE provides rare insight into Shari’a law, an often misunderstood legal framework for Muslims, told through the eyes of Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s religious courts. THE JUDGE offers a unique portrait of her brave journey as a lawyer, her tireless fight for justice for women, and her drop-in visits with clients, friends, and family. In the process, the film illuminates some of the universal conflicts in the domestic life of Palestine – custody of children, divorce, abuse – while offering an unvarnished look at life for women under Shari’a law.
Erika Cohn THE JUDGE
2017, 81 min, digital Sat, Mar 10 at 9:00.
PROGRAM 10: FEMINIST COLLABORATION: FILMMAKERS ROUNDTABLE With Lisa Cortes, Catherine Gund, Carrie Hawks, Alexandra Juhasz, Damien Luxe, Krissy Mahan, Constanza Mirré, Joanna Rytel, and Patricia Silva.
Collaboration is a crucial component of film and media practice, from writing and concept development to assembling a team, accessing resources and funding, and building a supportive community and professional network. In this roundtable, we discuss these practical and creative aspects of film and media production in the context of a possible ethos of collaboration as a quintessentially feminist strategy.
This event is free of charge! Sun, Mar 11 at 4:00.
PROGRAM 11: INTERSECTIONS The screening will be followed by a panel discussion; participants TBA.
SIGNATURE MOVE explores the complex intersectionality of being Muslim and queer. Its protagonist, Zaynab, played by the film’s writer Fawiza Mirza, is an immigration lawyer in Chicago, caught between obligations to her Muslim mother and her life as a lesbian woman. As Zaynab falls for Alma, a bold and bright Mexican woman, she searches for her identity in life, love, and wrestling. SIGNATURE MOVE is presented within the framework of the Intersections program, with a focus on films that use an explicit intersectional lens to tackle issues of identity, belonging, and community within the context of social exclusion and marginalization.
Jennifer Reeder SIGNATURE MOVE
2017, 80 min, digital Sun, Mar 11 at 6:00.
PROGRAM 12: FEMINIST FILM GENEALOGIES: ARCHIVE SESSIONS
The first wide release by a black female filmmaker, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST was met with wild critical acclaim and a rapturous audience response when it appeared in 1991. With a focus on feminist film genealogies, this Archive Sessions program revisits Julie Dash’s landmark classic, newly restored in conjunction with the UCLA Film & Television Archive. At the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina – former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yorùbá traditions – struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots. Casting a long legacy, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST still resonates today, most recently as a major influence on Beyoncé’s video album “Lemonade.”
Julie Dash DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
1991, 112 min, 35mm. Preserved print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive; screened with permission from the film’s distributor, the Cohen Media Group. Sun, Mar 11 at 8:30.
About Anthology Film Archives: Founded in 1970, Anthology's mission is to preserve, exhibit, and promote public and scholarly understanding of independent, classic, and avant-garde cinema. Anthology screens more than 1,000 film and video programs per year, publishes books and catalogs annually, and has preserved more than 1,000 films and videos to date. Directions: Anthology is at 32 Second Ave. at 2nd St. Subway: F to 2nd Ave; 6 to Bleecker.
Tickets: $11 general; $9 for students, seniors, & children (12 & under); $7 Anthology members
No comments:
Post a Comment