B/Side1996

Child's B/SIDE is a provocative exploration of the urban homeless, combining sensitive footage of their exterior situation and entering imaginatively into interior fantasies. Framed by footage of the encampment locally known as Dinkinsville on New York's Lower East Side, where some of the homeless of Tompkins Square Park settled after the riots of June 1991, the movie begins with the encampment's first night and ends with the fire and subsequent destruction of the lot in October of the same year. Applying rhythmic construction, poetic license and a generous eye to bodies in poverty, B/SIDE documents a gritty vision of late 20th century urban life.

"[F]ew of the films, experimental of otherwise, display the visual confidence and sociopolitical torque of Abigail Child's meditation on homelessness, B/SIDE, which is as modest and resonant as most alternative film is jejune." – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice, March 1997

"[A] rich Impressionistic work incorporating a stunning use of sounds and fragments of music; B/SIDE is as lyrical as it is critical." – Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times, October 1997

"Through both cinematic and emotional means, Child keeps her subjects and objects in a sustained and melodic forward motion, to achieve a tight web of dramatic tension." – Jan Meisner, New York Talk

"B/side shows the other side of Reagonomics, Director Abigail Child combines documentary with fiction and smart wit in a poetic montage to present a complicated and heartfelt portrait of colonialism at home. These events take place only a mile from Wall Street. The public is forced to look, even as the position of the camera changes. Sometimes the camera is the bystander, at other moments it is the perspective of the homeless themselves."–The Daily, Rotterdam Film Festival.

"Abigail Child's latest film works like a finely crafted poison dart. Its initial hit is subtle; the effect is curare - hypnotic, over-powering, lethal. ... Through a stylish, yet edgy, mix of staged shots, documentary footage and soundscapes – Child takes the viewer inside a homeless woman's world. ... [S]mart and fearless." – Gordon Bowness, XTRA!, Toronto, April 1997

Awards: Official Selection, London and Rotterdam Int'l film festivals; Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997; Oberhausen Film Festival Touring Package and Archive; Prize Winner, Ann Arbor Film Festival; OsnabrUck Media Arts Festival; Cineprobe, Museum of Modern Art, NY.