Choreographing Knowledge, Urban (Col)Laboratory

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MIRROR/LENS: WOMEN IN FILM & WOMEN MAKING FILM

Exhibition: 21 October to 22 November 2011
Film Festival & Conference: 21 to 23 October 2011
Choreographing Knowledge: 26 & 27 October 2011

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As part of the University of Cambridge's Festival of Ideas, Murray Edwards College will be hosting a Film Festival, Conference and Exhibition exploring the dynamic interaction between women, their image on screen, and the films that they make. We will be inviting filmmakers, producers, film historians and theorists to meet the community of Cambridge with screenings, presentations and discussions that will explore and celebrate the cinematic and real-world narratives around women in and making film.

The areas of discussion that we will be addressing are:
● Why are there so few female filmmakers?
● Is there a connection between the representation of women in film and the ongoing paucity of female filmmakers?
● Does the representation of women, and of men, alter in the hands of contemporary female filmmakers?
● How have female filmmakers, actors, producers and audiences subverted, manipulated, and embraced typical representations of women?
● The history of female documentary filmmakers is long and rich; how does contemporary documentary practice benefit from women's participation?

Screening List

Stories Your Mother Never Told You
Friday, October 21, 6pm to 8pm

• Dorothy Arzner, excerpt from Dance, Girl, Dance
• Agnes Varda, excerpt from Vagabond
• Elizabeth Mitchell excerpt from Island (Filmmaker in person)
• Jane Campion, A Girl's Own Story
• Su Friedrich, Sink or Swim
• Lyn Elliot, Know What You Mean

Screening Notes

Through the Looking Glass: Experiments on Beauty, Desire and the Self
Saturday, October 22, 3pm to 5pm

• Marina Abramovic, Art Must Be Beautiful
• Naomi Uman, Removed
• Pipilotti Rist, I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much
• Cinzia Sarto, Forbidden Fruit
• Sarah Woods (Filmmaker in person)
• Johanna Hibbard A Bump was a Pearl
• Chick Strand Soft Fiction

Screening Notes

Words and the World
Saturday, October 22, 6pm to 8pm

• Joan Logue, Portraits
• Mary Filippo, Trickle Down Theory of Sorrow
• Agnes Varda, The Women's Response
• Lauren Cook, Altitude Zero
• Alexis Bravos, Hepworth
• Franny Armstrong, Drowned Out
• Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie of The Somewhere Collective(Filmmakers in person)

Screening Notes

Exhibition

The following works will be shown in the Temporary Gallery.  Please join us for the Private View from 5pm to 6pm.

• Sarah Pucill, Phantom Rhapsody
• Alexandra Hidalgo, Perfect 
• Anna Cady and Louisa Makolski, It Works Both Ways
• urban (col)laboratory, Manchester Blind Spots
• Alexis Barvos, Hepworth

Choreographing Knowledge

In addition to this programme, urban (col)laboratory will be performing Choreographing Knowledge on 26 and 27 October 7:00pm - 8:00pm. The duo describe this site-specific walk and talk as a ‘combination of performance and architecture, practice and theory, intervention and lecture to look at the College as a stage for everyday performances'. Drawing on historical and participative research with students and staff, they will investigate how conventions and rules concerning space - social and cultural codes - become apparent in the body and its spatial interactions. urban (col)laboratory are architect/theorist Helen Stratford and media/performance artist Diana Wesser.

Choreographing Knowledge is free but booking is essential as places are limited. To book please contact Sarah Greaves, email: skg22@cam.ac.uk.

Festival of Ideas website

An edited volume of essays and notes will be produced to coincide with all the events at the College and social media will be used to allow remote participation in the discussions and presentations.

Featured Filmmakers present at Mirror/Lens Screening

Brek Taylor and Elizabeth Mitchell have completed the feature length narrative The Island. It is a beautiful and elusive, based on the novel Island by Jane Rogers.

Additional information on Brek and Elizabeth's work can be found here.

Brek and Elizabeth's film will screen on Friday night, in the 6-8 pm screening. They will be co-discussants with us, joined by Dr. Jenny Chamarette.

Dr. Jenny Chamarette specialises in French and European time-based media (including cinema, photography, video and installation art), film and art theory, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century French phenomenological thought. Her current research investigates the intersections between cinema and the museum space in contemporary France.

Sarah Wood and Selina Robertson work together on Clubs Des Femmes  which has incredibly exciting programming. Sarah's film I Want to be a Secretary is screening on Saturday afternoon.

Selina and Sarah will be co-discussants in the Saturday afternoon experimental screening, along with Lucy Reynolds.

Lucy Reynolds is a writer, artist and independent film programmer whose doctorate work explores British expanded cinema. She has curated numerous screenings and has published works in the history and theory of artist made cinema.

Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie are the founders of The Somewhere Collective, and their work is funny, eclectic and smart. They are also the driving force behind this summers popular Floating Cinema. We will be screening a section from Living with The Tudors, a very wry look at reenactment culture. I'm also looking forward to hearing about their new work.

Their film is screening in the 6-8 pm slot on Saturday, and they are co-discussants with us for that screening.

Series Curator: Meg Jamieson is a filmmaker, formerly from Ithaca, New York, now living in Cambridge.