The Suburban Trilogy

The Suburban Trilogy

16mm, sound, 75 min
A feature length project about girlhood and the immigrant dream, focusing on post WWII North American suburbs and between the war Europe, critically seem through the lens of gender, property and myths ...

Available for sale: DVD NTSC $300

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About

A feature length project about girlhood and the immigrant dream, focusing on post WWII North American suburbs and between the war Europe, critically seem through the lens of gender, property and myths of nation. - A rambunctious embrace, body to body, woman to woman, entrance to exist - in-laws foregrounding the construction of cinematic meaning, the elusive nature of memory and desire, the hysteric familial area of the social. The project is prismatic, in that each part explores a different perspective in terms of both cinematics and historical era.

DVD INCLUDES:
Cake and Steak USA, 2004, 21 min. Constructed as a series of achronological 'chapters' in which Edenic images of adolescent twirlers, basement parties, and 'dress-up' are challenged by a sound montage composed of horror movie music, old TV shoes, laugh tracks, and machine noise of our modern Arcadias.

The Future is Behind You USA, 2004, 20 min. A fictional story composed from an anonymous family archive of 1930's Europe with two sisters who play, race, fight, kiss and grow up together under the shadow of oncoming history. At once biography & fiction, history & psychology. The Future is Behind You excavates gestures to get at the hears of narratives; it seeks a bridge between private & public histories. Music by John Zorn, arranged and performed for the movie by Sylvia Courvoisier and Mark Feldman.

Surf and Turf USA. 2008-11, 32 min. Contemporary ambiguities on the Jersey shore: the look is secular, the lifestyle capitalist, the religion orthodox. 40,000 Syrian Jews have moved into landscape previously occupied by Irish, Italian and the quite different sect of Askenazi Jews. The "unmelted pot" of America's small towns is set within memory and contemporary oppositions. What does it mean to have class in America? What does it mean to be Jewish? I think of conflicts between Israel and Palestine, Serbia and Bosnia, India and Pakistan: neighboring families and races split apart by religion. Extreme poverty enforces the tribal, while extreme wealth maintains it. Surf and Turf provides no easy answers but raises issues that have to long stayed behind closed doors: what do we say when we think no one is listening?

Films

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    Ornamentals
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    Ornamentals
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Body
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    Prefaces Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 1)
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    Prefaces Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 1)
    Abigail Child

    16mm, color, sound, 9.5 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Arts / Artists
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    Mutiny
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    Mutiny
    Abigail Child

    16mm, color, sound, 9.5 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Ethnographic
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    Covert Action Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 4)
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    Covert Action Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 4)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Philosophical
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    Perils, Mayhem, Mercy
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    Perils, Mayhem, Mercy
    Abigail Child

    16mm, black and white, sound, 126 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Arts / Artists
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    Perils Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 5)
    Experimental
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    Perils Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 5)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
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    Is This What You Were Born For? 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 (Prefaces, Mutiny, Covert, Perils, Mayhem)
    Experimental

    Is This What You Were Born For? 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 (Prefaces, Mutiny, Covert, Perils, Mayhem)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Arts / Artists
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    Mayhem Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 6)
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    Mayhem Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 6)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Body
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    Both Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 2)

    Both Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 2)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Body
    • Erotic
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    Mercy Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 7)
    Experimental

    Mercy Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 7)
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Technology
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    B/Side
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    B/Side
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
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    Below The New:  A Russian Chronicle
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    Below The New: A Russian Chronicle
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: 16mm
    • Ethnographic
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    Surface Noise
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    Surface Noise
    Abigail Child

    16mm, color, sound, 18 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Found Footage
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    Dark Dark
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    Dark Dark
    Abigail Child

    16mm, black and white, sound, 16 min
    Rental format: 16mm
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    Cake and Steak
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    Cake and Steak
    Abigail Child

    color, sound, 10 min
    Rental format: DVD NTSC
    • Children / Youth
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    To and No Fro
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    To and No Fro
    Abigail Child

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    Rental format: DVD NTSC
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    Foreign Film Series
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    Foreign Film Series
    Abigail Child

    color and b/w, sound, 45 min
    Rental format: DVD NTSC
    • Films About Film
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    Mirror World
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    Mirror World
    Abigail Child

    color, sound, 12 min
    • Structural
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    (If I can sing a song of) LIGATURES
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    (If I can sing a song of) LIGATURES
    Abigail Child

    color and b/w, sound, 5 min
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    UNBOUND: Scenes from the Life of Mary Shelley
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    UNBOUND: Scenes from the Life of Mary Shelley
    Abigail Child

    DVD, color, sound, 70 min
    Rental format: DVD NTSC
    • History
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    ELSA merdelamerdelamer + VIS A VIS
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    ELSA merdelamerdelamer + VIS A VIS
    Abigail Child

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    BLUE EDIT
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    BLUE EDIT
    Abigail Child

    Digital, color, sound, 15 min