WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
A collection of films, in the spirit of Todd Haynes’ underground classic SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (which had its premiere at the Millennium Film Workshop in 1987!), that use the imagery of dolls, dollhouses and doll ephemera to satirize our plastic existences. These films run the tonal gamut from irreverent to poetic to disturbing — sometimes all in the same breath.
Program includes:
THE PLASTIC RAP WITH FRIEDA (Tom Rubnitz, Barbara Lipp & Tom Koken, 1983)
THE SPLIT (Laura Lewis-Barr, 2021)
CAST (Sarah Pucill, 2000)
THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF EARLY GIRLHOOD (Chaia Liebowitz, 2022)
BARBIE DREAM HOUSE (Susan Kougell, 2021)
PLASTIC HOLE (Daniel Lewinstein, 2020)
Total runtime: approximately 61 min.
Full program descriptions below.
THE PLASTIC RAP WITH FRIEDA
dir. Tom Rubnitz, Barbara Lipp & Tom Koken, 1983
4 min. USA.
“In this early Tom Rubnitz, Barbara Lipp and Tom Koken collaboration, “Frieda” performs her rap song with a bevy of dolls as back-up singers and dancers. Features rock-bottom production values and song lyrics by Barbara Lipp and Tom Koken.” – Video Data Bank
Digital Scan provided by Video Data Bank.
THE SPLIT
dir. Laura Lewis-Barr, 2021
14 min. USA.
Her relationship with Sam having fallen apart to the point of drawing literal physical boundaries in their home, Amy hits the road in her VW with her dog and finds a USA as steeped in division as her personal life.
CAST
dir. Sarah Pucill, 2000
17 min. UK.
“Cast creates a claustrophobic and haunting space where people and things invade worlds in which they do not normally belong. Lifeless dolls are heaped inside drawers, dolled-up life size figures lie motionless on a windy beach at the water’s edge; a chair rocks in an empty room, a mirror reflects and observes, and a chest of drawers is caressed by the sea. The film has a dramatic sensibility that sets up a false promise of narrative. Its structure, instead, is akin to that of dreams where different scenic spaces collapse and the inanimate and animate interchange. Wide-angled perspectives, shifting points of view and juxtapositions of sound and silence force inner and outer realities to collide, creating an unsettling psychic world.” –sarahpucill.co.uk
Digital Scan provided by Lux Distribution.
THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF EARLY GIRLHOOD
dir. Chaia Liebowitz, 2022
5 min. USA.
Oversaturated and absurdist, this is an educational film for aliens, introducing step by step the necessary conditions and behaviors one must master in order to gain acceptance on Earth as a proper female specimen or “girl.”
BARBIE DREAM HOUSE
dir. Susan Kougell, 2021
5 min. USA.
The disturbing flip side to the gendered social conditioning satirized in Ethnography of Early Girlhood, Barbie Dream House underscores the violent and disturbing realities of conditioned womanhood for many who grew up in the dream house.
PLASTIC HOLE
dir. Daniel Lewinstein, 2020
16 min. USA.
Looking deep into the Plastic Hole, one finds love and distance, sex and destruction. The haunting eye of a bird-god suggests a reptilian past while staring into the abyss of our plastic future—so much more could be said, but words can hardly accurately describe, pure, plastic, emotions.
THE (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is part of MEANS OF PRODUCTION: NEW ARTISTS’ CINEMA presented by MILLENNIUM FILM WORKSHOP.
This series will be devoted to showcasing works from overlooked and unknown American and International contemporary artists working in film and video, and pushing bounds beyond the limitations implied in those forms. Whether presenting intimate-scale epic by heretical artists re-interpreting the world as they see it on a no-string budget, or artists expanding vision via new tools of expression in the present and future age, Means of Production is about looking forward to a 21st century where economic and technological barriers are broken down, ushering in a new era of highly original cinematic handiwork.
The Millennium Film Workshop was founded in 1967 by a group of filmmakers with a vision to expand accessibility to the tools, ideas, and networks of filmmaking beyond the confines of institutions and corporate studios. Millennium has put on countless educational workshops, artist-hosted screenings, printed the renowned publication The Millennium Film Journal, served as a production hub kickstarting the careers of many prominent filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Todd Haynes, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneeman, Michael Snow, Bruce Connor, Nick Zedd, Andy Warhol and Bruce Conner and has played a large role in dismantling the monetary and educational barriers separating the art and craft of filmmaking from the general public.