The Women in the Director’s Chair International Film & Video Festival, now in its 15th year, continues through Sunday, March 24. It highlights shorts as well as features by women, including documentary, animated, narrative, and experimental works. Screenings are at Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 1543 W. Division; Randolph Street Gallery, 756 N. Milwaukee; and the Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson. Tickets are $6, $4 for Women in the Director’s Chair members, students, and senior citizens with a valid ID; festival passes are also available. For more information call 281-4988.
FRIDAY, MARCH 22
Un Tantito de Mexico: New Video From Mexico Four videos made in 1995 celebrating the stories of Mexican women, by Maria del Carmen de Lara, Ximena Cuevas, and Julia Barco. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Animated Women: New Animated Works
Short films and videos by Shannon Jeffries, Laura Heit, Shawn Atkins, Gail Noonan, Debra Callabresi, Meredith Holch, Nietzchka Keene, Rose Bond, and Ruth Hayes. Noonan’s Canadian Your Name in Cellulite (1995), the only one I’ve seen, is a lively work of nearly constant metamorphosis in the tradition of Robert Breer. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)
Selections From the Bildewechsel, Hamburg, Germany
An illustrated lecture by Birgit Durbahn, director of a women’s video collective based in Hamburg–an organization with parallels to Women in the Director’s Chair. (Randolph St. Gallery, 9:00)
SATURDAY, MARCH 23
Flava in Ya Ear: New Video by Youth
Videos made by American teenagers in 1995. (Randolph St. Gallery, 1:00)
We Are Not Who You Think We Are
Videos from India, Canada, and the U.S. by C. Tina Morton, Patrice Mallard, Robin Smith, Leila Sujur. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 3:00)
Hiding in Plain Sight
Films and videos, mainly from the U.S., by Shashwati Talukdar, Jacqueline Turnure, Alix Umen, Shari T. Silberstein, Kimberly Caviness, Prisco, and Tran T. Kim-trang. (Randolph St. Gallery, 3:00)
Looking for Love …
Films and videos by Lucinda Komisar, Judith Lebold, Anna Minkkinen, Me-K
Ando, Shari Fri lot, and Jennifer Williams. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 5:00)
Geography of the City
Films and videos from the U.S. by Mary Jane Doherty, Celine Salazar-Parrenas, Teri Yarbrow, Max Almy, Berta Jottar, Barbara Parker, Rachel Libert, Cheryl Hess, Leah Gilliam, and Denise Iris. (Randolph St. Gallery, 5:00)
Born in Flames
Set in a future New York City that bears a close resemblance to the present city (the film’s budget was minuscule), Lizzie Borden’s radical feminist feature focuses on two clandestine radio stations and the announcers who speak for them–a black woman named Honey, who espouses cooperation and community, and a white punk anarchist named Isabel, whose message is more negative and divisive. For all their differences, the women and the radio stations wind up seeming united in comparison to the repressiveness of the mainstream media, which also figure substantially in the plot. Made piecemeal over a number of years and first released in 1983, this comic fantasy has lost little of its radical edge-in contrast to Borden’s subsequent Working Girls, which accommodated itself more to the tastes of a wider audience. It certainly warrants a second look. (Film Center, 6:00)
Swirl
Films and videos from the U.S. and Britain by Kimi Takesue, Jessica
Shamash, Coco Fusco, Teresa Konechne, Etang Inyang, and Hyun Mi Oh. The
only work on the program I’ve seen, Hyun Mi Oh’s 1995 film La Senorita Lee, is an experimental narrative that’s visually striking and stylistically bold; it concerns the fears and reflections of a pregnant Korean American as she approaches marriage. Fusco will attend the screening. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Construction/Reconstruction
Films and videos from the U.S. by Rebecca Baron, Mira Gelley, Charlene Gilbert, Annie Griffin, Sara Whiteley, and Natalia Lazarus. (Randolph St. Gallery, 7:00)
Au Canada! New Shorts
From Canada
Films by Stephanie and Mark Morgenstern, Claudia Morgado, Sandra Kybartas, Larissa Fan, Faith Moosang, and Helen Lee. (Film Center, 8:00)
Dykes Forever: Fingers and Kisses
Films and videos from the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Japan by Martha Garcia, Thirza jean Cuthand, Juno Salazar Parrenas, Sadie Benning, Marinelli Andrade, Rhiannon Pollack, Jamika Ajalon, Shawn Atkins, Janet Baus, I.P. Montoyo and Third World Newsreel, Louise Wadley, Laura Nix, and Shu Lea Cheang. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)
SUNDAY, MARCH 24
Stranger Baby
Films and videos by Susana Donovan, Jupong Lin, Chelsea Guest, Renata
Gangemi, and Lana Lin. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 3:00)
Working Girls
A film by Sandra Pfeifer and videos by Grace Yoon-kyung Lee, Michelle
Stephenson, and Barbara Bird. (Randolph St. Gallery, 3:00)
Body/Language
Films and videos by Charlote M. Lagarde, Lorna Ann Johnson, Jessie Jane Lewis, Tania Kamal-Eldin, Joanna Wadell, and Elisabeth Subrin. Subrin’s Swallow (1995) is a transgressive and multifaceted look at suburban adolscents and eating disorders. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 5:00)
Life During Wartime
A video by Eva Egensteiner from the U.S. and Eritrea (1995), and films by Rose Bond, Ana Coyne Alonso, and Jo Andres from the U.S. (Randolph St. Gallery, 5:00)
Sambizanga
Made in Angola in 1972, Sarah Maldoror’s feature tells of a young wife’s cross-country search for her husband, a resistance leader spirited away by government forces. (DK) (Film Center, 6:00)
Homegirls
Films and videos by Karen Friedberg, jean Howard, Kirsten Stoltmann, Ines Sommer, Devorah Heitner, Samantha Staley, Sadie Benning, and Katherine Nero. (Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Blood Ties
A Chilean feature by Christine Lucas (1995), a psychological thriller called
Sisters in English, to be shown with Leslie Abundis-Lapage’s short film, Generation of Lies, about three Latina sisters. (Film Center, 8:00)