Cinenova collaborated with Auto Italia for Bodies Assembling (3rd – 11th December 2011): a series of screenings and workshops featuring moving image work selected by invited artists and activists.
Bodies Assembling strived to facilitate multiple readings or viewings of historical works from a current perspective, screening older film and video works from Cinenova’s collection alongside recent artistic and filmmaking practices. The construction of a temporary cinematic site at Auto Italia’s space allowed a discourse to develop that builds new relationships and knowledge.
Engaging with Auto Italia and Cinenova both as organisations but also as active communities of artists, the programme will express a range of diverse viewpoints on the struggles and feminisms present in the material distributed by Cinenova. Bodies Assembling encourages discussion, collaborative practice and alternative approaches to the production and distribution of culture through film and video work.
Cinenova is the only women’s film distributor in Europe tracing a feminist film history from the early 20th Century. It is a charitable organisation currently run voluntarily by the Cinenova Working Group.
Bodies Assembling acts as a forum to consider the contemporary legacy of the film and video work distributed by Cinenova reflecting on the similarities and differences of filmmaking and its various economic and political contexts.
Saturday 3rd December
7pm – Take Up, Direct Action, Acting Up, and Lift
Activism, street actions and filmmaking; A Fantasy Whitehall and a historical insight into British women’s participation in the Olympics. Presented by Althea Greenan, curator of the Women’s Art Library (Make) at Goldsmiths.
Stock Exchange – Women’s Peace Action, Annabel Nicolson, UK, 1983, 10mins
Hey Mack, Tina Keane, UK, 1982, 15mins
Keep Your Laws Off My Body, Zoe Leonard and Catherine Saalfield, USA, 1990, 13mins
The London Story, Sally Potter, UK, 1987, 15mins
Watch That Lift, Martine Lumbroso, UK, 1986, 13mins
This screening follows on from ‘Women Artists, Feminism in the 80s and Now’: Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, December 3rd 10-5pm.
Sunday 4th December
4pm – Life, Love and HIV
Presented by makers of ‘Life, Love and HIV’, a video developed by ‘Adults living with HIV’ at Body & Soul, a pioneering UK charity dedicated to transforming the lives of children, teenagers and families living with, or affected by HIV. This screening is an exploration of media representations of discussions about and ‘for’ people who are affected by or living with HIV, in the context of current government cuts for funding HIV education, awareness and prevention in the UK.
Keep Your Laws Off My Body, Zoe Leonard and Catherine Saalfield, USA, 1990, 13mins
Mouthing Off, Leeds Aids Advice, UK, 1991 (excerpt)
Fast Trip Long Drop, Gregg Bordowitz, USA, 1993 (excerpt)
Life, Love and HIV, Adults living with HIV at Body & Soul, UK, 2011, 7mins
7pm – Social forms of resistance, incorporating the principles for which they are fighting
“They struggle not only for the idea of social support and political enfranchisement, but their struggle takes on a social form of its own” – Judith Butler, Bodies in Alliance.
A selection of films presented by Emma Hedditch and Melissa Castagnetto (Cinenova Working Group).
Leila and the Wolves, Heiny Srour, UK/Lebanon, 1984, 90 mins
The Package, Dara Greenwald & Ona Mirkinson, USA, 2010, 10mins
Thursday 8th December
7:30pm – Material Interventions
A workshop on how to operate a 16mm film projector presented by Kerstin Schroedinger. The workshop will be followed by a screening in which the participants are all responsible for the projection.
Slides I-V, Annabel Nicolson, UK, 1971, 16mins
To Be Silent Is The Most Painful Part, Cheryl Edwards, UK, 1985, 6mins
Gently Down The Stream, Su Friederich, USA, 1981, 14mins
Chameleon, Tanya Mahboob Syed, UK, 1990, 4mins
Size 10, Susan Lambert & Sarah Gibson, Australia, 1978, 18mins
Friday 9th December
7:30pm – Her Image Fades as Her Voice Rises
“Sitting with her at the table, talking, her hands poised over the typewriter. The words in our minds, turning between description and analysis – to write the image, or to write about an image.” – Felicity Sparrow and Lis Rhodes 1983.
The first four films acquired by Circles distribution, which later became Cinenova.
The Smiling Madame Beudet, Germaine Dulac, France, 1922, 35mins
Light Reading, Lis Rhodes, UK,1978, 20mins
A House Divided, Alice Guy, USA,1913, 13mins
Often During the Day, Joanna Davis, UK,1979, 16mins
Saturday 10th December
4pm – Several films, one of which is potentially tedious
Huw Lemmey and Nina Wakeford present a selection of films which highlight the political stakes of the 1980s, when women’s relationships with technology and the world of work were addressed head on. The survey documents the variety of strategies used in political and personal engagements with the moving image, and have been chosen to challenge our relationship to the ‘unfinished business’ of feminism.
In Our Hands, Greenham, Tina Keane, UK, 1984, 40mins
Did I say Hairdressing? I meant Astrophysics, Leeds Animation Workshop, UK , 1998, 14mins.
A Question of Choice, Sheffield Film Co-op, UK, 1982, 18mins
Running Out of Patience, Serena Everill and Chris Brown, Australia, 1987, 40mins
Impulse, Ramona Metcalfe, UK, 1987, 1min
7pm – It’s like staring someone out who isn’t looking at you
A performative screening organised by Rachal Bradley, Kate Cooper, Leslie Kulesh and Jess Weisner.
8pm – Transfictions
A presentation of two film works representing transgendered people. The works explore a possibility to transform the film-making process to find new vocabularies that challenge the notion of the ‘universal’. The screening will be accompanied by two texts from Irene Revell (Cinenova Working Group) and an interview between Richard John Jones (Auto Italia), Michael Oswell and Terre Thaemlitz. Read the interview text HERE.
Norrie, Annette Kennerly, UK, 1997, 21mins
Transfiction, Johannes Sjoberg, Brazil, 2007, 57mins
Sunday 11th December
4pm – Workshop on “Several films, one of which is potentially tedious”
An open discussion with Huw Lemmey and Nina Wakeford following on from the issues raised by their previous screening.
7pm – The Black Whole
The Archivist and Acting Director of the Lambeth Women’s Project, Ego Ahaiwe, will respond to Cinenova’s claims to represent women’s film and video considering what has been left/kept out. The Cinenova catalogue is largely representing work by White European and White North American women. This event will ask how and why this collection has preserved and, to a large extent, maintained the excluding systems that formed it. This screening and subsequent workshop seeks to explore possible formulas, structures and frameworks that would transform the status quo.
Recreating Media Images of Black Women, Zeinabu Irene Davis, USA, 1983, 30mins
Now Pretend, Leah Gilliam, USA, 1991, 10mins
A Tribute To Black Women, They Don’t Get The Chance, Witch (Women’s Independent Cinema House), UK, 1985, 13mins
This project was made possible though support from Arts Council England