Su Friedrich was born in 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut. She attended the University of Chicago in 1971-72 and Oberlin College from 1972-1975, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Art and Art History. Since 1976 she has lived and worked in New York.
Friedrich began filmmaking in 1978 and has produced twelve 16mm films, including Cool Hands, Warm Heart (1979), Gently Down the Stream (1981), The Ties That Bind (1984), Damned If You Don't (1987), Sink or Swim (1990), First Comes Love (1991), Rules of the Road (1993), and Hide and Seek (1996).
Friedrich is the writer, director, cinematographer, sound recordist and editor of almost all her films, which range in length from 10 to 65 minutes. All of the films but one were produced in black & white. In 1993, Friedrich co-directed and co-edited a one hour videotape with Janet Baus entitled The Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too, which documents the first year of an activist group.
Friedrich's films have won many awards including: for Sink or Swim, the GRAND PRIX at the Melbourne Film Festival, the GOLDEN GATE AWARD at the San Francisco Film Festival, the GOLD JUROR'S CHOICE AWARD at the Charlotte Film and Video Festival, the SPECIAL JURY AWARD at the Atlanta Film Festival and the BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM AWARD at the USA Short Film and Video Festival; for Damned If You Don't, the BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM AWARD at the Athens Film Festival and the BEST EXPERIMENTAL NARRATIVE AWARD at the Atlanta Film Festival; and for Cool Hands, Warm Heart, the SPECIAL MERIT AWARD at the Athens Film Festival.
Her work is widely screened in the United States, Canada and Europe. Since 1983, Friedrich has made personal appearances at over 125 one person shows. Her work has also been the subject of retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Stadtkino in Vienna, the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver, the National Film Theater in London, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska, the First Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, the Cork Film Festival in Ireland, the Wellington Film Festival in New Zealand, and the Anthology Film Archives in New York.
Four of her films--First Comes Love, Sink or Swim, Damned If You Don't, and Cool Hands, Warm Heart--were broadcast on WNET-NY on the "Independent Focus" program; Sink or Swim was also broadcast on "The Learning Channel", on SBS-TV in Australia, on KLRU-TV in Austin, Texas, on WYBE-TV in Philadelphia and on Channel 5 in Vancouver. The Ties That Bind was shown on "New York Screening Room" on WNYC-TV, on Manhattan Cable "Group W", on "Mixed Signals" in New England, and on Channel 21 in Pittsburgh. Friedrich is the recipient of the Alpert Award (1996), an Independent Television Service production grant (1994), an NEA Fellowship (1994), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1990), a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1989), a DAAD grant as artist-in-residence in Berlin (1984), as well as multiple grants from the New York State Council on the Arts (1993, 1992, 1989, 1986, 1982), the New York Foundation for the Arts (1993, 1989), and the Jerome Foundation (1992, 1989, 1986), and grants from Art Matters, Inc. and the Artist's Space Emergency Materials Fund. She was also a resident at the Yaddo Artist's Colony for six weeks in the summer of 1993.
Friedrich is a part time teacher of film production in New York at the Millennium Film Workshop and the New School for Social Research, and has curated several film shows at the Millennium Film Workshop in New York and at the Arsenal Kino in Berlin.
Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Public Library, the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the National Library of Australia, as well as many university libraries. The films are distributed by The Museum of Modern Art, Women Make Movies, Canyon Cinema, Frameline Distribution, Drift Distribution, Canadian Filmmaker's Distribution Center in Toronto, the London Filmmaker's Coop, Cinenova in London, Light Cone in Paris, Archives du Film Experimental in Avignon, and Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek in Berlin.
The films have been reviewed in numerous publications, including Premiere, The Village Voice, Artforum, The New York Times, The Nation, Film Quarterly, The Millennium Film Journal, Sight and Sound, Flash Art, Cineaste, The Independent, Heresies Art Journal, Afterimage, and The L.A. Weekly. Essays on her work as well as excerpts from her scripts have appeared in several books, including "Eccentric Identities" in Queer Looks (1993) and "Anything But Idyllic" in Sisters, Sexperts and Queers (1993), both by Liz Kotz; in Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema (1992) by Andrea Weiss; and in Screen Writings (1994), Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies (1993), and Critical Cinema: Volume Two (1992), all by Scott MacDonald.
A film by Su Friedrich
HIDE AND SEEK is a daring exploration into wild, uncharted territory--lesbian adolescence in the 1960's. Lou is a 12 year old girl who daydreams in a tree house, tries not to watch a sex education film, wins a rock throwing contest, and is horrified to discover that her best friend is taking an interest in earrings and boys. Interwoven with Lou's story are the mostly hilarious, sometimes painful recollections of adult lesbians who try to figure out how they ever got from there to here. Completing the picture are clips from a wide array of old scientific and educational films which blend seamlessly with the beautiful black and white images of Lou's world. HIDE AND SEEK is for every woman who's been to a slumber party and every man who wonders what went on at one.
"HIDE AND SEEK is rueful, funny, multifaceted and sharply intelligent."
--Stuart Klawans/film critic, THE NATION
"...A GIRL'S OWN STORY for lesbians. Friedrich has woven a rich and provocative tapestry that assaults complacent assumptions about pubescent desire and lesbian identity, all the while raising important questions about the representation of racial and sexual fantasy life...Thoroughly engaging from beginning to end."
--Yvonne Rainer
"...provocative...engaging...breaks new ground."
--Emanuel Levy, VARIETY
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS & AWARDS:
BEST NARRATIVE FILM: Athens International Film & Video
Festival
SPECIAL JURY AWARD: The New York Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
JUROR'S CHOICE: Charlotte Film Festival
HONORABLE MENTION: Image Film & Video Festival, Atlanta
Sundance Film Festival; Berlin International Film Festival; Jerusalem Film Festival; London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; Sydney Film Festival; Melbourne Film Festival; Inside Out Film Festival, Toronto; Image & Nation Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Montreal; Cleveland International Film Festival; Boston Festival of Women's Cinema; Frameline Film Festival, San Francisco; Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema; Umea Film Festival, Sweden; Viennale Film Festival, Austria; Turin International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Italy; Perlen '97, Germany; Out On the Screen Film Festival, Los Angeles; Filmfest DC, Washington.
PRODUCTION CREDITS for Hide and Seek
1996, 63 minutes, black & white. Produced by Downstream Productions, Inc. in association with the Independent Television Service. Produced by Eva Kolodner and Katie Roumel. Written by Su Friedrich and Cathy Nan Quinlan. Cinematography by Jim Denault. Production design by Debbie Devilla. Costume design by Kim Marie Druce. Edited by Su Friedrich. Starring Chels Holland, Ariel Mara, Alicia Manta and Lindsay Martinelli. A Women Make Movies release.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1993)
Su Friedrich
Rules of the Road tells the story of a love affair and its demise through one of the primary objects shared by the couple: an old beige station wagon with fake wood paneling along the sides.
A typical American family car for an atypical American family, it provides the women at first with all the familiar comforts. But when their relationship ends, the car becomes the property of one woman and the bane of the other's existence. Even long after their separation, this tangible reminder of their life together--and thousands of its imitators--continues to prowl the streets of the city, haunting the woman who no longer holds the keys either to the car or the other woman's heart.
Rules of the Road is also study in theme and variations. In this case, the theme is the standard wagon. The variations are a consequence of experience, which transforms the object and makes us continually invest it with new meanings. This sense of constant change happens during the course of the film just as surely as it happens to us in our daily lives.
Through spoken text, popular music and images from the streets of New York, Rules of the Road takes a somewhat whimsical, somewhat caustic look at how our dreams of freedom, pleasure, security, and family are so often symbolized by the automobile.
"... the light, almost whimsical tone of the film should not blind us to the part of it that is irreducibly personal. Station wagons are everywhere; everybody's got a sad love story. But only one filmmaker, to my knowledge, has Su Friedrich's eye....With Rules of the Road, she creates a film like a perfect short story."
Stuart Klawans, THE NATION
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS & AWARDS:
KINO AWARD, SPECIAL COMMENDATION: Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia;
CERTIFICATE OF MERIT: Cork International Film Festival, Ireland; DIRECTOR'S CHOICE AWARD: Black Maria Film Festival, New Jersey; HONORABLE MENTION: Queer Film Festival, Eugene, Oregon; New Directors/New Films Festival, New York; London International Film Festival; Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Netherlands; Inside Out Festival, Toronto; Wellington International Film Festival, New Zealand; Feminale Festival, Cologne, Germany; Image/Nation Film Festival, Montreal; Festival of World Cinema, Philadelphia; European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, Germany; Sydney International Film Festival, Australia; The New Festival, New York; Frameline Film Festival, San Francisco; Out On Screen Film Festival, Vancouver.
PRODUCTION CREDITS for Rules of the Road
1993, 31 minutes, 16mm, color, optical sound. Produced by Jezebel Productions, Inc. Direction, Script, Cinematography, Voiceover, and Editing by Su Friedrich. Funded in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1991)
by Su Friedrich
First Comes Love consists of perfectly choreographed scenes of four wedding ceremonies accompanied by a complex medley of popular love songs. All seems to be going as it should until the couples reach the altar, when the celebratory atmosphere is interrupted for a surprising public service announcement. Then song and dance continues until the happy couples depart, leaving behind a dwindling crowd and a few altar boys who carefully sweep up the rice that blankets the pavement like snow.
The film doesn't attempt to defend--or discredit--the institution of marriage. Instead, it reveals the many subtle emotions surrounding the event, and raises questions about how the double standard regarding marriage affects gay and straight couples.
"Throughout, Friedrich keeps a gracious distance, building a critique that doesn't patronize the very real, very naked emotion she captures. A virtuoso of clarity, Friedrich recasts the personal as political, makes the public curiously intimate. In her hands, a slow pan to a discarded box of Carolina Rice is both poignant and absurd, a fit coda to a ceremony of privilege that's at once desired and denied."
Manohla Dargis, THE VILLAGE VOICE
"A work of nuance and irony...gently yet forcefully asking the viewer to deal with questions of commitment and love and the public announcement of them."
Leslie Kossoff, GAY COMMUNITY NEWS
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:
Festival of Festivals, Toronto; Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada; Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan;
Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia; First Annual Tokyo Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Japan; Sydney International Film Festival, Australia; 37th Cork International Film Festival, Ireland; London Gay and Lesbian Film; 16th San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; Women's Film Festival, Cincinnati; Melbourne Queer Film and Video Festival, Australia; USA Film Festival, Dallas, Texas; British Film Institute Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Tour; Image/Nation Film Festival, Montreal.
PRODUCTION CREDITS for First Comes Love
1991, 22 minutes, 16mm, black and white, optical sound. Produced by Jezebel Productions, Inc. Script, camera, editing by Su Friedrich. Produced in part by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1990)
Su Friedrich
Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play.
As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior.
Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.
"...a film that is proudly personal and triumphantly artisanal, as accessible as it is uncompromising".
J. Hoberman, PREMIERE MAGAZINE
"...tough-minded and touching."
Caryn James, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"A striking portrait of girlhood adolescence...throws a new and startling light on familiar subject matter..."
Michael Upchurch, THE SEATTLE TIMES
"...(its) honest engagement with essentail human dilemmas proves immensely moving.
Fred Camper, THE CHICAGO READER
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS & AWARDS:
GRAND PRIZE, KINO AWARDS: Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia; GOLDEN GATE AWARD: San Francisco International Film Festival; SPECIAL JURY AWARD: Atlanta Film Festival, Georgia;
BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM: USA Short Film and Video Festival, Dallas; JUROR'S CITATION AWARD: Black Maria Film Festival, New Jersey; GOLD JUROR'S CHOICE AWARD: Charlotte Film Festival, North Carolina; New York Film Festival; London Film Festival; Festival of Festivals, Toronto; Rotterdam Film Festival, The Netherlands; Festival of American Independents: 1920-1990, Torino, Italy; The Whitney Biennial, New York; Jerusalem Film Festival, Israel; Sydney International Film Festival, Australia; Wellington International Film Festival, New Zealand; 27 Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro, Italy; Film Fest D.C., Washington; Athens Film festival, Athens, Ohio; Denver International Film; "Set In Motion: NYSCA Celebrates 30 Years of Independents", NY; Umea International Film Festival, Sweden; Vancouver Film Festival; Flaherty/Vertov Film Seminar, Latvia; Women's Film Festivals in France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals in Amsterdam, Montreal, Minneapolis and San Francisco
PRODUCTION CREDITS for Sink or Swim
1990, 48 minutes, 16mm, black and white, optical sound. Produced by Su Friedrich. Script, cinematography and editing by Su Friedrich. Produced by grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation on the arts, and Art Matters, Inc. Voiceover reading by Jessica Lynn. Music: "Gretchen am Spinrade" by Franz Schubert, performed by Kathleen Ferrier on Decca Records.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1987)
Su Friedrich
"Damned If You Don't is a real prize. Beautifully shot in black and white, it blends conventional narrative technique with impressionistic camerawork, symbols and voicovers to create an intimate study of sexual expression and repression. It begins with footage from a stylish old potboiler about an isolated convent, whose tale of passions leashed and unleashed provides the leitmotif for a young lesbian who watches it and the lonely nun she pursues and seduces.
As the two women's lives come closer to joining, voiceovers from the biography of a 16th century lesbian nun and the reminiscences of a woman's closeted romances at a Catholic school flesh out the theme. When the two women finally meet and make love, the woman's careful unwrapping of the nun's complicated prison of clothing is both foreplay and liberating metaphor. The film is as hypnotic as a dream."
Andrew Rasanen, Bay Windows
"The film energizes feminist deconstruction by locating it within a context of at least two forms of (redirected) film pleasure: the excitement of melodramatic narrative and the sensuous enjoyment of cinematic texture, rhythm and structure."
Scott MacDonald, Film Quarterly
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS & AWARDS:
BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM: Athens Film Festival, Ohio
BEST EXPERIMENTAL NARRATIVE FILM: Atlanta Film Festival
Festival of Festivals, Toronto, Canada; National Film Theater, England; Whitney Biennial, New York; Tyneside International Film Festival, England; Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan; Virginia Festival of American Film, Charlottesville; Images '89, Toronto; "Image Media" Festival, Whitney Museum, New York; Flaherty Film Seminar, New York; "Alternatives" Festival, Hartford, CT; "Sexism, Racism and Colonialism: A Corrective Film Series", NY; Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals in Budapest, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Norwich, Winnipeg, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Pittsburgh, and Champaign, IL. Women's Film Festivals in France, Germany, Halifax, Montreal, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, and Minneapolis.
PRODUCTION CREDITS for Damned If You Don't
1987, 42 minutes, 16mm, black and white, optical sound. Produced by Su Friedrich. Script, direction, camera, sound, editing by Su Friedrich. Script assistant Cathy Quinlan. Production manager Peggy Ahwesh. Starring Peggy Healey and Ela Troyano with voiceovers by Makea McDonald, Martina Siebert and Cathy Quinlan. Produced in part by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1984)
Su Friedrich
The Ties That Bind is an experimental documentary about the filmmaker's mother, who was born and lived in southern Germany from 1920-1950. Through a mixture of personal anecdote and social history, she describes the rise of Nazism, the war years, and the Allied occupation, during which she met her future husband, an American soldier.
The only voice we hear is that of this one "ordinary woman", while the images portray her current life in Chicago, her hometown before and during the war, New York Post headlines, contemporary peace marches, present day footage of Germany, and much more. However, The Ties That Bind breaks with the usual format of war documentaries, thus allowing a different portrait of the individual to emerge, while it reflects on the current political situation in America and the filmmaker's activities in relation to those issues.
The film creates a powerful dialogue between past and present, between mother and daughter. But it is more than an interview of a mother by a daughter--it is a profound search for a definition of history, and a challenge to our own responsibility for the present.
"The film is an original: a moving and courageous tribute from a child to a mother's beleaguered memory."
David Edelstein, THE VILLAGE VOICE
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:
New Directors/New Films, New York; Tyneside International Film Festival, England; Salsomaggiore Film and TV Festival, Italy;
Jump Cut Film Festival, Perth and Fremantle, Australia; "1945-1985: Women and Resistance", Amsterdam; Flaherty/Vertov Film Seminar, Latvia; Festival of New York Independent Films in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; "Alles und Noch Viel Mehr", Bern, Switzerland; Second International Festival of Films by Women, Montreal; Women's Film Festival, Cincinnati; Denver Film Festival; "L'Altra Meta Della Scena", Rome, Italy
PRODUCTION CREDITS for The Ties That Bind
1984, 55 minutes, 16mm, black & white, optical sound. Cinematography and editing by Su Friedrich. Produced by Su Friedrich. Funded in part by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
(1981)
by Su Friedrich
"Gently Down the Stream can be described about as easily as you can hold on to a handful of water....Suffice it to say that Friedrich has an artist's instinctive sense of film--she expresses herself in it with a freedom and rightness that strike the viewer immediately. When the last image leaves the screen, you may not be able to say what you've seen, but you know what you've felt."
Stuart Klawans, THE NATION
"...her films (particularly the celebrated Gently Down the Stream) signalled an important change that was occurring with the evolution of experimental cinema....The film demonstrates Friedrich's considerable technical talents and formal creativity as well as her canny historical sense in reappropriating the formal strategies generally associated with the "structural film." Friedrich's film becomes a public exorcism, one that continually exposes and infects the viewer with the psychic consequences of religious constraints, familial binds and sexual conflicts.
Bruce Jenkins, MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL
MAJOR FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:
Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Netherlands; "Unknown Territories: American Independent Film", Vienna; Haifa International Film Festival, Israel; Experimental Film Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Festival of American Independents, Torino, Italy; "Mot: Dites, Image" Festival, Paris, France; Osnabruck Film Festival, Germany; Banff Arts Festival, Banff, Canada; Miami Waves Experimental Film Festival, Miami, Florida; Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals in Hamburg, Amsterdam, San Francisco, and Washington; Women's Film Festivals in Montreal, New York, and North Carolina.
PRODUCTION CREDITS for Gently Down the Stream
16mm, 13 minutes, black & white, silent, runs at 18 f.p.s.
Produced by Su Friedrich. Script, cinematography and editing by Su Friedrich.
* To obtain a home video copy or a 16mm print, see information at end of listings of all the films.
Films available (refer to numbered distribution list below):
HIDE AND SEEK: 1, 2, 6, 10
RULES OF THE ROAD: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9
FIRST COMES LOVE: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8
SINK OR SWIM: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11
DAMNED IF YOU DON'T: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9
THE TIES THAT BIND: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
BUT NO ONE: 6
GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9
SCAR TISSUE: 4
COOL HANDS/WARM HEART: 1, 4, 6
All films are available for home video and institutional sales directly from
the filmmaker. Payment by check (no credit cards). For prices and orders, please
contact:
Downstream Productions, Inc.
attn: Su Friedrich
118 North 11th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 599-7601
email: sugfriedrich@compuserve.com
For institutional sales and rentals in 16mm or video, please contact the following
distributors, whose numbers correspond to the numbers after each film title:
1. Women Make Movies
462 Broadway, 5th floor
New York, NY, 10012
tel. (212) 925-0606, fax 925-2052
e-mail: evogt@wmm.com or dz@wmm.com
2. Media Luna
Ida Martins
Alter Markt 36-42
D-50667 Cologne, Germany
tel. (+49-221) 139-2222, fax 139-2224
e-mail: 100527.3710@compuserve.com
3. Museum of Modern Art, Circulating Film Library
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
tel. (212) 708-9530, fax 708-9531
email: kitty_cleary@moma.org
4. Canyon Cinema
2325 Third Street, Suite 338
San Francisco, CA 94107
tel. and fax (415) 626-2255
email: films@canyoncinema.com
5. Canadian Filmmaker's Distribution Center (CFMDC)
37 Hanna Ave, Suite 220
Toronto, ON, Canada
M6K 1W8
tel. (416) 588-0725, fax (416) 588-7956
email: cfmdc@interlog.com
6. London Filmmaker's Coop
c/o the LUX Theater
2-4 Hoxton Square
London N1 6NU ENGLAND
tel. (011-44-020) 7684-0202, fax (+020) 7684-2222
Email: Jo@lux.org.uk
7. Cinenova
113 Roman Road
London E2 OHU, ENGLAND
tel. (011-44-020) 8981-6828, fax 8983-4441
Email: admin@cinenova.demon.co.uk
8. Light Cone
12 rue des Vignoles
75020 Paris, FRANCE
tel. (011-33-1) 46.59.01.53, fax (011-33-1) 46.59.03.12
email: ligtcone@club-internet.fr
9. Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek
Welserstrasse 25
10777 Berlin, GERMANY
tel. (011-49-30) 218-6848, fax (011-49-30) 218-4281
10. The Independent Television Service (*)
51 Federal Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
tel. (415) 356-8383
e-mail: lois_vossen@itvs.pbs.org
(*) Only for US public television broadcast
11. Buttle Broadcasting
1 Belmont Terrace
Ramsey 1M8 3PG
United Kingdom
tel. (44-1624) 817-203
fax 817-204
email: tv@buttle.com
"Sink or Swim", script and photos. CINEMATOGRAPH, Vol. 4, Spring 1991.
"Does Radical Form Require Radical Content?" MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL, Vol. 22, Winter/Spring 1989-90.
"Gently Down the Stream", text and photos. DREAMWORKS, Summer 1986.
"Gently Down the Stream", text and photos. Self-published book, 1984.
"Script for a Film Without Images". FEMINISM/FILM #1, 1984.
"Jennifer, Where Are You?", THE DOWNTOWN REVIEW, vol. 3, nos. 1 and 2, Fall-Winter-Spring, 1981-82.
"Bette Gordon's `Empty Suitcases'" THE DOWNTOWN REVIEW, vol. 2, no. 3, Fall 1980.
"Sitney on Cornell", THE DOWNTOWN REVIEW, vol. 2, no. 2, Fall-Winter 1979/80
"Letters: On Margareta von Trotta's The Second Awakening of Christa Klages'", THE DOWNTOWN REVIEW, vol. 2, no. 2, Fall-Winter 1979/80.
Photographs, fiction, essays, film script. HERESIES: A FEMINIST JOURNAL ON ART AND POLITICS, Vols. 1,2,3,4,6,9,16, 1977-83.
BOOKS: Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies by Chris Straayer, Columbia University Press, 1996
"The Wild Zone" by Annette Kuhn, in Women's Pictures, 2nd ed., Verso Press, 1994
"Eccentric Identities" by Liz Kotz, in Queer Looks: Perspectives on Gay and Lesbian Film and Video, edited by Martha Gever, John Greyson and Pratibha Parmar, Routledge Press, 1993
Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies by Scott MacDonald, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993
"Anything But Idyllic: Lesbian Filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s" by Liz Kotz, in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers, edited by Arlene Stein, E.P. Dutton Publishers, 1993
Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema by Andrea Weiss, Jonathan Cape Publishers, London, 1992
Critical Cinema: Volume Two by Scott MacDonald, University of California Press, 1992
ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS:
"Fractured Fairytales and Experimental Identities: Looking for Lesbians in and around the Films of Su Friedrich" by Chris Holmlund, DISCOURSE 17.1, Fall 1994
"Du film de famille au journal filme" by Roger Odin, LE JE FILME, Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1995
"Le Je a la camera" by Yann Beauvais and Jean-Michel Bouhours, LE JE FILME, Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1995
"New Subjectivities: Documentary and Self-Representation in the Post-Verite Age" by Michael Renov, DOCUMENTARY BOX, #7, 1995
"It's Not As Bad As You Think: A Spoonful of Experimental Cinema (from the Plate of Su Friedrich)" by Alex MacInnis, FOCUS Magazine, Vol. 15, 1995
"In den Film gekratzt" by Stefan Grissemann, DIE PRESSE, September 21, 1994
"So: Su Me!" by Sue Dinsmore, PHASE, August/September 1994
"Cinema mineur, de moeurs" by Yann Beauvais, ART PRESS SPECIAL, No. 14, 1993
"Lesbians Make Movies" by Alisa Lebow, CINEASTE, Vol. XX, No. 2, December 1993
"Filmmakers Series: Su Friedrich Talks" by Joan Boccino, THE EMPTY CLOSET, December 1993/January 1994
"Unknown Territories: American Independent Film" by Steve Anker, BLIMP, 1992
"Women Makes Movies" by Maureen Bogues, THE LINCOLN STAR, October 22, 1992
"Tytto Joka Oppi Uimaan" by Tuike Alitalo, FILMIHULLU, 5/92
"From Zygote to Global Cinema via Su Friedrich's Films" by Scott MacDonald, JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO, Vol. 44, Nos. 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 1992
"Some Like It Hot" by Judith Halberstam, THE INDEPENDENT, Vol. 15, #9, November 1992
"An Interview with Filmmaker Su Friedrich" by Sam McElfresh, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF THE ARTS NEWSLETTER, Autumn, 1991
"The Films of Su Friedrich" by Deborah Lawler-Dormer, ILLUSIONS, Winter 1991
"L'infanzia di tutti. Parla Su Friedrich" by Cristina Piccino, LA REPUBLICA, July 1991
"Beyond Brakhage: Avant-Garde Film and Feminism" by Manohla Dargis, A PASSAGE ILLUMINATED, (catalogue for show at Filmtheater Desmet), Amsterdam, 1990
"Daddy Dearest: Su Friedrich Talks About Filmmaking, Family and Feminism" by Scott MacDonald, THE INDEPENDENT, December 1990
"Three Experimental Filmmakers Rap Up" by Karl Sohnlein, OUTWEEK, December 12, 1990
"Reflections in a Golden 'I'" by John Katz, INT'L DOCUMENTARY, Fall 1990
Women In Film: An International Guide, ed. by Annette Kuhn, Fawcett-Columbine, New York, 1990
"Interview with Su Friedrich" by Erika Herzog and Jeanne Gilliland, GIRLIE MAG, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1989
"When Form Takes As Many Risks As the Content" by Katharina Sykora, FRAUEN UND FILM, Vol. 46, February 1989
"Girl Crazy" by Martha Gever, THE INDEPENDENT, July 1988
"Damned If You Don't: An Interview With Su Friedrich" by Scott MacDonald, AFTERIMAGE,Vol. 15, #10, May 1988
"Reappropriations" by Scott MacDonald, FILM QUARTERLY, Winter 1987/88
"Gently Down the Stream" by Bruce Jenkins, MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL, Fall/Winter 86/87
"Text As Image" by Scott MacDonald, AFTERIMAGE, March 1986
"Interviews With New York Filmmakers" by Stephanie Beroes, CINEMATOGRAPH # 2, 1986
"Die Angst dat Het Niemand Zal Interessern" by Bernadette de Wit, DIVA, September 1985
"Female Rage: The Films of Su Friedrich" by Lindley Hanlon, MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL, Spring 1983
"N.Y. Independent Cinema" by Berenice Reynaud, FUSE, Summer 1985
"Avant-Garde Films by Women" by Anna Gronau, THE EVENT HORIZON, 1987
"Interview with Su Friedrich" by Selim Eyuboglu, GREAT LAKES FILM AND VIDEO NEWSLETTER, April 1985
SELECTED REVIEWS:
"Daddy's Girl," by Fred Camper, CHICAGO READER, February 8, 1991
"Sink or Swim," by Michael Zryd, Senses of Cinema, November, 2000.
"De vrouwelijke wereld van Su Friedrich" by G.G., DE MORGEN, October 4, 1994
"1993 Top Picks" by Judith M. Redding, DENEUVE, March 1994
"Top Ten 1993" by Susan Gerhard, SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN, December 1993
"On the Road With Su and In Bed With Sadie" by Paola Bilbrough, ILLUSIONS 21/22, Winter 1993
"Women Feature at Triskel" by Isabel Healy, CORK EXAMINER, October 5, 1993
"Moving Pictures" by Matt Roth, GREY CITY JOURNAL, November 5, 1993
"A Kiss Before Towing" by Susan Gerhard, THE BAY GUARDIAN, May 1993
"Women's Film Festival" by Stuart Klawans, THE NATION, May 17, 1993
"Power Fills Screens of Charlotte Film Festival" by Lawrence Toppman, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, May 7, 1993
"WOW Women's Film Festival" by Amy Taubin, VILLAGE VOICE, April 4, 1993
"In a Wierd City, Games Turn Serious" by Janet Maslin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 19, 1993
"Memory and Desire: Films by Su Friedrich" by Ella Taylor, LA WEEKLY,
February 19-25, 1993
"Women's Cinema Today: A Construction Site With Attitude" by Betsy Sherman, BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE, January 17, 1993
"Women Filmmakers Take Spotlight" by Terry Orme, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, November 6, 1992
"Women Make Movies" by Maureen Bogues, THE LINCOLN STAR, October 22, 1992
"SINK OR SWIM de Su Friedrich" by Yann Beauvais, L'ARMATEUR, 1992
"Critic's Pick: Su Friedrich" by Cindy Fuchs, CITY PAPER, Jan. 31-Feb. 7, 1992
"Release for a Poetic Soul" by Joanna Connors, CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, March 1, 1992
"The Year in Review" by J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE, January 14, 1992
"The Year in Review" by Manohla Dargis, VILLAGE VOICE, January 14, 1992
"The Year in Film" by Stuart Klawans, THE NATION, December 30, 1991
"Life with Father" by J. Hoberman, PREMIERE, December 1991
"Lost and Found" by Manohla Dargis, VILLAGE VOICE, December 19, 1991
"Whitney Films", THE MIAMI HERALD, October 6, 1991
"First Comes Love" by Stuart Klawans, THE NATION, September 23, 1991
"Protest, Identity, Themes at Lesbian/Gay Film Fest" by Gregg Bordowitz, THE GUARDIAN, September 11, 1991
"Don't Blink" by Manohla Dargis, VILLAGE VOICE, September 10, 1991
"History in the Making" by Leslie Kossoff, GAY COMMUNITY NEWS, September 1-14, 1991
"Niente sesso siamo Indipendenti" by Marina Pertile, IL TEMPO, June 17, 1991
"Vade retro Hollywood" by Michele Anselmi, L'UNITA, June 6, 1991
"Americani incorreggibili" by Leonarda Antera, CORRIERE DELLA SERA, June 16, 1991
"Celluloid Banquet" by Michael Arago, SF WEEKLY, May 1, 1991
"Giving the Offbeat a Chance" by Daniel Margin, BAY AREA REPORTER, April 24, 1991
"Shorts in a Feature Length World" by S.W., THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN, April 25, 1991
"Film As a Shaper of American Culture" by Caryn James, NEW YORK TIMES, April 19, 1991
"A Woman On the Verge" by Liz Galst, THE ADVOCATE, February 26, 1991
"Intelligence, Grace and Visual Power" by Warren Sonbert, BAY AREA REPORTER, January 31, 1991
"Leading Women" by Liz Galst, BOSTON PHOENIX, December 14, 1990
"Voice Choices" by Manohla Dargis, VILLAGE VOICE, December 19, 1990
"Life is Like a Pool" by Lynn M. Ermann, THE CORNELL DAILY SUN, Nov. 16, 1990
"It's Not Exactly 'Father Knows Best' in Su Friedrich's 'Sink or Swim'" by Jonas Kover, UTICA OBSERVER DISPATCH, November 15, 1990
"Su's Work Has Them Sitting Up On Those Extra Seats!" by Declan Hassett, CORK EXAMINER, October 11, 1990
"Cinematic Treats by Beeban Kidron" by Michael Upchurch, SEATTLE TIMES, October 10, 1990
"Avant-Garde Visions" by Manohla Dargis, VILLAGE VOICE, October 2, 1990
"Reves d'Americaines, reves brises" by Berenice Reynaud, JOURNAL LIBERATION, October 1990
"A Modernist Approach to Biography" by Caryn James, NEW YORK TIMES,
September 30, 1990
"Experimental Visions" by Janice Berman, NEW YORK NEWSDAY, September 29, 1990
"The 1989 Whitney Biennial" by Theodor von Kunstadt, FLASH ART, Summer 1989
"Symposium on Avant-Garde Cinema" by Patrick Murphy, ANN ARBOR OBSERVER, April 1989
"Feminists' Work Closes Barna Symposium" by Mark Shaiman, THE MICHIGAN DAILY, April 6, 1989
"Su Friedrich a Filmmaker To Be Taken On Her Own Terms" by Christopher Potter, ANN ARBOR NEWS, April 5, 1989
"The Ties That Bind" by Cindy Fuchs, CITY PAPER, March 1989
"Identity Crisis: The Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival" by Tom Kalin, THE INDEPENDENT, Jan/Feb 1989
"Memory, Sexual Desire on the Screen" by Jeannie Lochrie, KINESIS, Dec/Jan 1989
"Films" by Stuart Klawans, THE NATION, October 31, 1988
"Filmmaker Experiments with Sex and Religion" by David Ehrenreich, L.A. HERALD EXAMINER, June 1988
"Avant-Garde Film: Cinema as Discourse" by Scott MacDonald, JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO, Vol. 40, #2, Spring 1988
"Lasting Evidence: Women in the Director's Chair" by Ramona Curry, AFTERIMAGE, May 1988
"Damned If You Don't" by Helen Knode, L.A. WEEKLY, June 2, 1988
"Rotterdam International Film Festival" by Jonathan Rosenbaum, SIGHT AND SOUND, Spring 1988
"A Queer Kind of Film" by Jan Stuart, FILM COMMENT, December 1987
"Perversely Independent" by Michael Bronsky, GAY COMMUNITY NEWS, November 8, 1987
"A Laying On of Images" by Andrew Rasanen, BAY WINDOWS, November 5, 1987
"Talking Pictures" by Amy Taubin, VILLAGE VOICE, October 13, 1987
"Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers Still Sing the Body Eclectic" by Anne d'Adesky, IN THESE TIMES, October 14, 1987
"Experimental Films Worthy of the Name" by Jewelle Gomez, GAY COMMUNITY NEWS, September 1987
"A Queer Kind of Film" by Donna Minkowitz, THE GUARDIAN, September 16, 1987
"Experimental Bent" by Amy Taubin, VILLAGE VOICE, September 15, 1987
"The State of Things (in New York Independent Filmmaking)" by Simon Field, THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE BULLETIN, January 1987
"The Ties That Bind" by Leigh Marlowe, PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN QUARTERLY, December 1986
"Dreams and Nazi Memories on NWCA Screen" by Christopher Woodside, THE PATENT TRADER, November 7, 1986
"Un Regard Different" by Serge Dussault, LA PRESSE, June 1986
"Serious Fun" by David Edelstein, VILLAGE VOICE, April 1985
"`The Ties That Bind' and 'Witness To War'" by Vincent Canby, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 1985
"Su Friedrich at the London Film Coop" by Jo Comino, CITY LIMITS, February 1985
"Struktur und Rhythmus" by Hedemarie Strauch, ZITTY, December 1984
"The Ties That Bind" by Barbara Kruger, ARTFORUM, October 1984
"History Now" by Harvey Nosowitz, CHICAGO READER, October 1984
"Due Registe Americane" by Giovanna Grassi, CORRIERA DELLA SERRA, August 1984
"Due Americhe per due donne. Gutman & Friedrich, registe" by Elisabeta d'Erme, IL MANIFESTO, August 1984
"Speaking From the Outside" by Barbara Kossy, ARTWEEK, July 1984
"`Gently Down the Stream' and 'The Ties That Bind'" by J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE, May 1984
"A Cutting Room of One's Own" by Kathleen Hulser, IN THESE TIMES, January 1984
"New York International Film Festival" by Barbara Kruger, ARTFORUM, November 1983
"Art Films Come Out of Obscurity in Kitchen Series" by Kathleen Hulser, THE VILLAGER, May 1982
"Experimental Film Program" by Linda Gross, L.A. TIMES, May 1982
Su Friedrich
118 North 11th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
e-mail: sufriedrich@cs.com
