Intimate Vision: Films by Chick Strand

Sunday 23 October 2011, at 2pm, NFT3

As one of the instigators of Canyon Cinema, Chick Strand (1931-2009) was at the heart of 1960s West Coast avant-garde. Her film work, comprising of found footage and personally photographed material, has been rarely seen in the UK and is presented now in newly preserved prints. Strand’s camera is almost continually in motion, catching details in kinetic close-up to convey celebrations of intimacy and the joys of living.

‘For most of her filmmaking career, the integrity of Strand’s vision lay aslant of prevailing fashions, so that only belatedly did the full significance of her radically pioneering work in ethnographic, documentary, feminist, and compilation filmmaking – and above all, in the innovation of a unique film language created across these modes – become clear.’ (David James, The Most Typical Avant-Garde)

Cartoon le Mousse
Chick Strand | USA 1979 | 15 min
In her collage films, Strand uses the magic of editing to conjure surreal humour from the connections between disparate fragments.

Mosori Monika
Chick Strand | USA 1970 | 20 min
The impact of American missionaries on the Warao Indians in Venezuela is considered from the viewpoints of women from each side.

Angel Blue Sweet Wings
Chick Strand | USA 1966 | 3 min
A multi-layered cine-poem apropos life and vision.

Loose Ends
Chick Strand | USA 1979 | 25 min
Found footage is used to convey the effect of information overload, finding wit and pathos in the complicated synthesis of personal experience and media assault.

Artificial Paradise
Chick Strand | USA 1986 | 13 min
‘The anthropologist’s most human desire: the ultimate contact with the informant. The denial of intellectualism and the acceptance of the romantic heart, and a soul without innocence.’ (CS)

Kristallnacht
Chick Strand | USA 1979 | 7 min
‘Dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank, and the tenacity of the human spirit.’ (CS)

Mark Webber

‘Loose Ends’ was preserved by Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley. All other films preserved by Pacific Film Archive and Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles, with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Also screening:
Thursday 27 October 2011, 9pm, NFT3

Read an interview with Chick Strand discussing the making of Mosori Monika here