Film Format: 16mm

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 1 – The Ties That Bind

    “The Ties That Bind” is a powerful meditation on political responsibility and personal loss as seen through the story of the filmmaker’s mother, who grew up in Nazi Germany. Using rare archival footage, extensive interviews and critical commentary, Friedrich constructs a fearless dialogue between past and present, between mother and daughter. “The Ties That Bind” engages in a profound search for an understanding of history, and challenges us in our responsibility for the present. Languages: English, German * New Directors/New Films, MoMA * “Le Mois du Film Documentaire,” France * “In and Out of the Cold, 1945 to 1995,” International…

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 2 – Damned If You Don’t

    “Damned If You Don’t” is Friedrich’s subversive and ecstatic response to her Catholic upbringing. Blending conventional narrative technique with impressionistic camerawork, symbols and voice-overs, this film creates an intimate study of sexual expression and repression. Featuring Peggy Healey as a young nun tormented by her desire for the sultry irresistible Ela Troyano. Languages: English, German PLUS BONUS FILMS: RULES OF THE ROAD 31 minutes, Color, USA, 1993, 16mm RULES OF THE ROAD is the story of a love affair and its demise through one of the objects shared by the couple: an old beige station wagon with fake wood paneling.…

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 3 – Sink or Swim

    A contemporary classic and a landmark in autobiographical filmmaking, “Sink or Swim” is an unflinching account of the highly charged relationship between a daughter and her father. Through a series of twenty-six short stories, a young girl chronicles 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…

  • Del Mero Corazon

    A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition. Shipped as a bonus film on the “Chulas Fronteras.”

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 4 – Hide and Seek

    “Hide and Seek” tells the story of Lou, a twelve-year-old girl coming to terms with her budding sexuality in the mid 1960s. Her bittersweet tale is skillfully interwoven with clips from a wide array of scientific and educational films, as well as interviews with adult lesbians who recount their adolescent attractions to girls, how they felt when they first heard the word lesbian, where they fit in the butch/femme continuum, and their thoughts about how they became baby dykes. “Hide and Seek” is for every woman who’s been to a slumber party and every man who wonders what went on…

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 5 – The Odds of Recovery

    After a twenty-year period of multiple illnesses and injuries, Friedrich turns the camera on herself as a way to analyze her chances for a happier, healthier life. In the process, she captures the frustration, tedium and petty annoyances of a revolving-door relationship with the medical establishment, while portraying the complicated web of emotions that accompany any medical problem. With humor and honesty, “The Odds of Recovery” uses the filmmaker’s medical history as a means to address a perennial human problem: the desire to avoid conflict and deny the need for radical change. “…plays with the genre of the self-portrait…all in…

  • In the NA

    Pairing the gestures of modern, interpretive dance to the ecstatically, high-energy pop song, “In the NA” depicts a scientific experiment in hypnotism / human behavior gone awry. The subjects cognitive information is examined, recorded, inputted and finally obliterated by the performers. In its surrealistic climax, the music overpowers the experiment demanding that a new language for scientific understanding be established.

  • Broken Telephone

    A surreal short film in which a young woman ponders the relationship she has with her own identity.

  • Faces West

    “Faces West” is a hand-processed dance film that explores the conflict between desire and inhibition, intimacy and distance. Created in collaboration between Rebecca Gruihn (Director) and Niomi Cherney (Choreographer/Performer), it takes the viewer to three city spaces that can be considered both public and private. The tensions of Cherney’s unique movement style are captured by Gruihn’s 16mm camera.

  • After Nature

    After Nature, after the Fall, after all – where do we go from here? Digital imagery and optically printed superimpositions combine in a cascading plunge to no(w)here – new beginnings, or more of the same? With text excerpts from Heinrich Boll and Gertrude Stein. Title from the W.G. Sebald book of the same name.