MIX 97: Opening Night of the 11th New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film and
Video Festival
RIOT GRRRANDMAS!!! Program
Wednesday, November 12, 1997, 6pm
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. (between University and Fifth)
Did you ever find yourself at a Tribe 8 show and realize that you were at
least 20 years older than anybody else?
Did MOMA's recent "Young and Restless" show make you feel old and cranky?
Was "The S.C.U.M. Manifesto" your favorite chapter in Sisterhood is Powerful?
Did you ALWAYS hate Holly Near?
Did you ever belong to W.I.T.C.H. (Women's International Terrorist
Conspiracy from Hell)?
Does Xena make you feel nostalgic?
Did you do the speculum thing long before Annie Sprinkle?
In the midst of current frenzies about riot grrrls and dykecore bands, as
well as the ever-persistent fetish of youth, let's take a minute to rock
and roll with the older (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s) gals in our midst.
Complex, brilliant, smashing, fucked-up, sex-crazed and silly, troubled and
tormented, playful and political, these ladies tend bar, eat meat, defend
imprisoned revolutionaries, play in bands, have spontaneous orgasms, write
poetry, make art, have inter-generational loves and friendships, get
arrested, found archives, ride in rodeos, fight and argue, rumble in the
streets...
RIOT GRRRANDMAS!!!, a program organized by artist and videomaker Mary
Patten, will include short video pieces - apocryphal anecdotes, interviews,
music videos, portraits, performances, fantasies, homages, musings, rants
and raves - from a variety of producers and personalities in a videozine
format, combined with fabulous retro revisits to the early 1970s, including
a seldom-seen Barbara Hammer piece (Superdyke), a classic of new-left
cinema veritŽ (What the fuck are these red squares), an excerpt from a
Shirlee Jensen's beautiful animated film (By the Light of the Moon - Part
1) about women's role in pre-history, and Kate Horsfield's humorous and
affectionate portrait of queers in the rodeo life (Queers and Steers). The
videozine, produced and edited by Patten, includes a short interview with
Joan Nestle, noted writer and co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives,
at the Dyke March, New York, 1994, and Yvonne Welbon's trailer for a longer
piece on 98-year-old Ruth Ellis, the oldest known iving African American
lesbian in the U.S.
THE PROGRAM
RIOT GRRRANDMAS: a videozine (world premiere), Mary Patten,
Producer/Editor, 1997, USA.
video, 18 min., color, stereo sound. Rock out with our aunts and "uncles,"
crazy mommas and retro sisters, lusty divas and radical foremothers.
1. Interview with Joan Nestle, Dyke March, NYC. Mary Patten,
Director/Camera/Editor. 1997, U.S.A., 2 min., video, color, stereo sound. Chicago activist Jeanne Kracher chats with dyke foremother extraordinaire, Joan Nestle, writer and co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
2. Ruth Ellis (trailer: world premiere) Yvonne Welbon, Director.
1997, U.S.A., 5 min., video, color, stereo sound
A short trailer for a feature documentary introducing Ruth C.
Ellis, the oldest known living African American lesbian.
3. Judy and Callucci's 15th Anniversary (world premiere), Nancy
Forest Brown and Cynde Schauper, Directors, Mary Patten, Editor. 1997, U.S.A., 4 min.,
video, color, stereo sound (excerpts from a performance in 1989)
Chicago's Randolph St. Gallery is transformed into "Judy's Place,"
a lesbian country-western bar, on the occasion of the (fictional) anniversary
of Judy and Callucci, the bar's owners.
4. An Evening with the Sappho Socialites (a.k.a. Sons of Sappho),
Stephanie Coleman, Director, Mary Patten, Editor. 1997, U.S.A., 2 min., video, color,
stereo sound
Excerpts from a documentary of the 1995 grand reunion of the Sappho
Socialites, a 30-year old social club for African American lesbians based on the
south side of Chicago.
5. Dollywood or Bust (world premiere), Jeanine Oleson and Danielle
Sawicki, Co-directors. 1997, U.S.A., 4 min., video, color, stereo sound
Two young dykes travel to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in search of
their #1 fetish object and female icon, Ms. Dolly Parton.
6. The ZZlezbians in concert (U.S.A. premiere), Margaret O'Flanagan
and Judith Kinsella, Co-directors. 1997, U.S.A., 1 min., video, color, stereo
sound.
Irish drag kings perform excruciating ZZtop impersonations
7. Queers and Steers, Kate Horsfield, Director. 1994, U.S.A., 14 min.,
video, color, stereo sound
A humorous and affectionate portrait of queer cowgirls, cowboys, horses and
steers: pink triangles at the rodeo!
8. What the fuck are these red squares (New York premiere), Kartemquin
Films (Jerry Blumenthal, director and editor; Gordon Quinn, camera). 1970,
U.S.A., 15 min., 16mm, b & w, optical mono sound.
A classic of "new left" cinema-veritŽ, What the fuck are these red squares
features a riot lady, 1970s-style, as she leads a teach-in at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago during the height of the anti-Vietnam-war
movement.
9. By the Light of the Moon (Part 1) (New York premiere), Shirlee
Jensen, Director.
1997, U.S.A., 13 min., 16 mm. animated film to video, color, sound.
By the Light of the Moon (Part 1), an animated film about women's role in
pre-history, combines beautiful artwork, found footage, and a pedagogical
snake in a funny and informative "counter-narrative" to the biases of
Western history
10. SuperDyke, Barbara Hammer, Director. 1975, U.S.A., 25 min., 16mm,
color, sound.
SuperDyke is a zany lesbian comedy about a gang of shield-bearing Amazons
who run rampant in San Francisco before retreating to their ovular
structures in the country.
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes
FOR MORE INFO, CONTACT:
Mary Patten
c/o Video Dept., School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S. Michigan, 3rd floor
Chicago, IL 60603
FAX: 312.541.8070
email: mpatte@artic.edu
OR MIX: 11th New York Lesbian&Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival
email: mix@echonyc.com
MIX International Websites
MIX NYC: http://www.echonyc.com/~mix
MIX Brasil: http://www.mixbrasil.com.br
MIX Mexico: http://www.planet.com.mx/mix
MIX/THE 11TH NEW YORK LESBIAN & GAY EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 6-16, 1997
VENUES: CINEMA VILLAGE, THE KNITTING FACTORY AND POPCORNQ ONLINE