“Strange things happening, mother,” writes Lillian Gish in Night Hunter (2011). She has found a giant egg in her bassinet, an egg that will multiply and lead to her own transformation (into a bird? a snake?). Perhaps her transformation process has already begun and she gave birth to the egg without knowing it. Strange things… Read more »
Guest post by Joan Hawkins. “Who chose his words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood. Hip-flask-slinging madmen, steaming café flirts. They all spoke through you.” — “Hey Jack Kerouac,” Natalie Merchant and Robert Buck Remember the story of King Midas. He was granted a wish and without thinking it through, he asked that… Read more »
Lynne Sachs’ film output is prolific and varied, encompassing documentaries, essay films, non-narrative experiments, and installations. Like many feminist filmmakers, a theme running through her work is the insistence that the personal is important. Whether one’s own body, private moments in a doctor’s office, or one’s sense of family and home, our personal lives are… Read more »
What does it mean when a film is “handmade”? If we’re talking about experimental film, the term “handmade” usually refers to techniques like direct animation, processing film at home instead of sending it to a lab, or otherwise directly manipulating your negative or film print (bleaching, dying, etc.). Naomi Uman engages in all these techniques…. Read more »
Guest post by Anthony Silvestri, member of the Underground Film Series programming team. After taking fall semester off, on January 27th the Underground Film Series returns to IU Cinema. This is the first of two screenings that reaffirm our central mission: to program rarely shown, subversive works that communicate a unique vision of cinema. We view… Read more »
In one of her essays, film historian Jane Gaines opens with a contemplation about absence in the historical archive. She’s writing about racialized spectatorship. Documents may be lost or never have existed, and the cultural experiences of both Black and White audiences attending race films in some ways defy documentation in their ephemerality. How can… Read more »