From: gyoungblood (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Jan 20 2007 - 05:39:47 PST
Rob,
I happen to be obsessed with animation at the moment, and while your program is admirable and welcome, it leaves me wondering why so many visionary women animators are not included -- Suzan Pitt, Martha Colburn, Gunvor Nelson, Joanna Priestly to name but a few (there are scores more; I'm doing this spontaneously with no time to think about it). Not to criticize your project so much as to encourage a more comprehensive survey. The future of the moving image, after all, is animation and appropriation.
----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Gawthrop
To: email suppressed
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 5:56 AM
Subject: [FRAMEWORKS] Moving the Image
Moving the Image - a programme of short animated films by women from the 1950’s to the present day.
Presented by the Women, Arts and Media Project, Hull Film and Hull Screen.
Where: Hull Screen | University of Lincoln | George Street | Hull | HU1 3BW
When: Friday 26th January 2007 at 2pm and 7.30pm
Entry: £3.50/£3.00 concessions. Available from Hull Screen
www.hullscreen.co.uk)
“This programme shows the diversity, imagination and range in women’s animation. Women have always had a presence in animation - many worked as tracers, painters or designers. Some were pioneers, like Lotte Reiniger who made painstakingly detailed silhouette animations such as Snow White Rose Red, (1953). Many are experimental: Caroline Leaf's film The Street (1976) uses the technique of manipulated ink on a flat plate of glass, lit from beneath; in Sunset Strip (1996) by Kayla Parker, over 4500 time-lapse drawings were painted directly onto 35mm film using materials such as nail varnish, hair, bleach and magnolia petals. Some are socially aware – Waste Watchers (1996) by Leeds Animation Workshop (originally a women’s collective). Others are enjoyable for their wit and imagination - City Paradise (2004) by Gaelle Denis, (live action, 2D and computer animation).” Jo Millett (programmer).
Snow White and Rose Red
Lotte Reiniger 16mm, black and white, 14 min (1953)
A mother and her two daughters welcome a bear into their home. The sisters rescue him from the spell cast by an evil dwarf and he turns back into a handsome prince. A magical film. Reiniger's animation of the bear as he becomes part of the household, warming himself by the fire and winding wool, is really charming.
The Street
Dir. Caroline Leaf 1976 10 min 35mm
This award-winning animation film spares no feelings and minces no words. In soft simple washes of watercolor and ink, the filmmaker interprets reactions to a dying grandmother, capturing family feelings and distilling them into harsh reality.
Furies
Sara Petty
USA, 1982, sound, colour, 3 mins, 16mm
Two cats, on the prowl, animated with fluid movement and shifting perspective. The elements of movement and balance are as much the subject as the cats.
Mothfight
Vanda Carter
1985, sound, B&W, 8 mins, 16mm
In conventional visual symbolic language, light represents good, order, truth and life. Dark represents evil, chaos and death. The moth in the film, fighting to escape the light, is a metaphor for personal feelings which contradict this set of accepted symbolic 'meanings'. The light bulb and the candle flame are deadly for the moth, darkness is safety and life.
Sunset Strip
Kayla Parker
UK, 1996, 4 mins, 35mm
A dazzling expression of the visual music revealed by 365 setting suns, observed across southern Britain from Norfolk in the East to Land's End in the far South West. Over 4500 time-lapse drawings were painted directly onto a continuous strip of 35mm film leader using a variety of materials such as nail varnish, hair, bleach, net stocking and magnolia petals.
Fixation
Vicky Smith
UK, 2002, sound, colour, 8 mins, 16mm
It's impossible to look directly at the monster so a shield is used to study its reflection. Through animated solar stains, fixation explores family history, witches and the alchemy in spells, chemistry, psychological and photographic fixations. The discolouration of the paper becomes the image, brown monochrome shadows.
Waste Watchers Leeds Animation Workshop
1996 - 12 mins 16mm
Founded in 1978 to produce animated films on social issues, the Yorkshire-based group was set up as a women's collective, and maintains its commitment to feminist and collectivist principles and to an 'integrated practice' of film production making. Waste Watchers encourages energy conservation in the home, the school and the workplace.
Hooked Vera Neubauer 2001 9 min
Latino life unravelled and re-knitted – animation on location. A woman journeys through Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia meeting others who knit and crochet. They exchange experiences, as do their knitted characters.
Doubled Up Samantha Moore 2004 6 min
A short autobiographical animated film about the chaos that a multiple pregnancy and birth can bring, and the filmmaker’s bewildered response.
City Paradise Gaelle Denis 2004 35mm 5 mins, 55 secs
London is a big city, and for those new to it, it can sometimes seem quite scary. But Tomoko, who arrives from Japan to learn English, accidentally discovers a mysterious, secret city underground, inhabited by friendly little aliens and beautiful blossoms. After she's found it, everything changes...
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.