Lis Rhodes 8 - Cinenova

5 April, 2020 - 17:00
Paddenhoek

A selection of titles from the Cinenova archive curated and presented by Charlotte Procter (Cinenova Working Group).

Cinenova was founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women. Both organisations aimed to provide the means to support the production and distribution of women’s work and played critical roles in the creation of an independent and radical media. Since 2001, Cinenova has been looked after by volunteers dedicated to keeping the films in circulation and the collection together. The focus of the Cinenova Working Group (founded 2010) has been to critically engage with the conditions of the organisation, seeking out special exhibition and education projects. Showing the films in diverse contexts, the working group has looked at the importance of showing these films within contemporary political contexts and discussions.

 

In the presence of Charlotte Procter

Now Pretend

Leah Gilliam
,
US
,
1991
,
16mm
,
10'

Now Pretend is an experimental investigation into the use of race as an arbitrary signifier. In just ten minutes, this film quickly cycles through a diverse bank of images. Drawing on language, personal memories and the 1959 text, Black Like Me, it deals with Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’, ideologies of the beautiful and the movement from object to subject. Now Pretend is a look at how totalizing definitions function for/ against women of colour — a visual and sonic effort to re/ collect the self.

A Song of Ceylon

Laleen Jayamanne
,
AU
,
1985
,
16mm
,
51'

A formally rigorous, visually stunning study of colonialism, gender and the body. The title echoes the classic British documentary and evokes a country erased from the world map. The soundtrack enacts a Sri Lankan anthropological text observing a woman’s ritual exorcism. Visually, the film brings together theatrical conventions and recreations of classic film stills, presenting the body in striking tableaux. A film that is a provocative treatise on hybridity, hysteria and performance.