Original Sisters Film Screening Session Two: Inspirational Female Artists

As part of our programming during the exhibit Original Sisters: 365 Portraits of Tenacity and Courage by Anita Kunz (OC DFA) we are turning to 16mm film and resident artist Sebastian Di Trolio who has curated a series of films that highlight women who have influenced future generations and history. This is session two in this two part series.

KÄTHE KOLLWITZ

Herbert Apelt | 1961 | Germany | B&W | 16 minutes

Käthe Kollwitz was the most powerfully emotional German artist of this century; this film describes her life and work, and stresses the timelessness and humanity of her art. Its very personal narration is taken wholly from the artist's own diaries. The suffering of Berliners in the 1890s, the cruelty and senselessness of the First World War, in which Kollwitz lost a son, and the anguish of the Second World War are vividly portrayed. Most of her best works are tragic and many of them specifically pacifist. This was a pioneering art film, and the honesty of its approach is unsurpassable.

PORTRAIT OF IMOGEN

Meg Partridge | 1987 | USA | B&W | 27 minutes

Famed American photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) narrates a visual survey of her work from a career spanning three quarters of the 20th century. Subjects range from botany & still life studies to portraits of creative contemporaries that were commissioned by Vanity Fair in the 1930's.

15 minute Intermission. 

Second part of screening begins at 7:15pm.

ISADORA DUNCAN: MOVEMENT FROM THE SOUL

Dayna Goldfine & Don Geller | 1988 | USA | colour | 58 minutes

This unsentimental portrait of the complex and charismatic "Mother of Modern Dance" traces the life and artistic development of San Francisco-born Isadora Duncan (1877-1927). Duncan raised dance from mere vaudeville entertainment to a legitimate art form, laying the foundation for today's modern dance. The first American performing artist to gain worldwide acclaim, she dared to use her medium for political purposes: creating the first choreography to call people to arms, to express the plight of repressed workers, and to agitate for the freedom of women. Set against the social tapestry of turn-of-the-century America and Europe, Isadora Duncan: Movement From the Soul is a study of a revolutionary and iconoclast, a woman who dared to defy Victorian mores through both her art and the way she lived. Illuminating and gracefully crafted, the documentary interweaves the details of Duncan's tumultuous life with recreations of twelve of her choreographed dances.

Presented on 16mm film in partnership with @FramesFilmSeries