Su Friedrich

Su
Friedrich

Friedrich has been a leading figure in avant-garde filmmaking and a pivotal force in the establishment of Queer Cinema. Her work has radicalized film form and content by incorporating a feminist perspective ...

Films

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    Gently Down the Stream
    Experimental

    Gently Down the Stream
    Su Friedrich

    black and white, silent, 13 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Structural
    • Hand-Processed
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    Damned If You Don't
    Documentary
    Experimental

    Damned If You Don't
    Su Friedrich

    black and white, sound, 42 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • LGBT / Queer
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    First Comes Love
    Documentary
    Experimental

    First Comes Love
    Su Friedrich

    black and white, sound, 22 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Family
    • LGBT / Queer

Biography

Su Friedrich was born in 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut. Her mother was German and came to the US with Friedrich's father who was working in Germany as a GI at the time. Friedrich attended the University of Chicago (1971–72) and Oberlin College (1972–1975) from which she earned a B.A. in Art and Art History. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is a Professor in the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at Princeton University, where she has taught film and video production since 1998.

Friedrich's films regularly combine elements of narrative, documentary, and experimental styles of film-making and often focus on the roles of women, family, and homosexuality in contemporary America. From the onset of her career in the late 1970s, Friedrich has been a leading figure in avant-garde filmmaking and a pivotal force in the establishment of Queer Cinema. Her work has radicalized film form and content by incorporating a feminist perspective and issues of lesbian identity and by creating a remarkable and innovative synthesis of experimental, narrative and documentary genres. Friedrich's films are multi-lingual, moving between the personal and the political, from autobiographical films about family to the investigation of society's notions of sexual identity. Her cinematic palette includes home movies, archival footage, interviews, and scripted narratives.