Weird things happen when you violate the boundaries. You might spring a leak, piss off the feds, undergo a state change or disappear completely. Join GAZE for a night of local and international film and video that crosses the line in one way or another. Featuring girl gangs, celebrity assassinations, political voicemail, and Winona Ryder. It’s all good… until it isn’t.
The Moonsong of Assassination – Dolissa Medina
“The Moon Song of Assassination” is a documentary creation story about Tex-Mex “Tejano” music singer Selena, who in 1995 at the brink of crossover success, was shot and killed at age 24 by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar. An international news story, the murder created a unique cultural moment of massive collective Latino mourning and thrust Chicano visibility into the forefront of mainstream American consciousness. Forerunner, if not cause, of the “Latin wave” pop explosion that would launch such stars as Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, Selena’s death became a watershed moment for Latinos in the United States, leaving a media legacy that would extend far beyond the music industry. Using appropriated news accounts, performance footage, and 60s-era NASA imagery, this “docu-myth” tells the story of Selena’s ascension into America’s pantheon of martyred cultural figures — a moment when “The Big Bang began not with a bang and not with a boom but with the biddi biddi bom bom of Yolanda’s gun.”
Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls – Sonia Gonzalez
As she’s watching a 1980′s documentary about South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a young French woman is caught by a RIP graffiti signed by the Stagg Girls on a wall near her house…
Untitled: Self Portrait 5786 – Sable Elyse Smith
Father Daughter Dance
The Post-Feminist Dissonance Project – Hannah Piper Burns
The Post(?) Feminist Dissonance Project uses a quote by Kathleen Hanna as a prompt, a voicemail box as an interviewing device, found footage as a tool, and text as a character. it is a study in the cacophony of the inner life tuned against the perception of reality. i made this piece to see if i was alone, and i discovered that for better or for worse, i am not. this is above all about the process, not the resolution.
Images within Us – Adla Isanovic
There is a huge amount of media reports recorded in Sarajevo during the Siege. Media framed those events, streets, places and people into well-known images, common representations of war. Audience around the world is able to watch such imagery, over and over again. Adla Isanovic erased the whole urban scene and context out of it, leaving only images of people. In that way, she explores how does the audience’s relationship to such imagery of people, whose context is erased-change.
The Prayer – Nooshin Rostami
The Prayer questions the “godly duties” that are foisted upon young Muslim boys and girls, as they are expected to faithfully assume their religious obligations. The video juxtaposes a recording of Azan -the call for prayer- from Iranian national TV, with a private ritual.
The Blazing World – Jessica Bardsley
Inflected with a feminist sensibility, The Blazing World is an essay film composed of a variety of visual and sonic stolen materials. Through an associative logic, The Blazing World enacts a meditation on shoplifting, depression, gender, Winona Ryder, and the filmmaker`s own experiences with stealing and mental health. Stealing by women becomes a form of rebellion against social and economic oppression, while also failing to provide the mental and emotional solace sought after in the accumulation of goods.
GAZE is a film series dedicated to screening independent film and video made by women. GAZE promotes women’s artistic expression and creates dialogue related to the influence of this powerful medium.
