M. M. Serra

M. M.
Serra

MM Serra is an experimental filmmaker, curator, author, educator and the Executive Director of Film-Makers Cooperative, the oldest and largest archive of independent media in the world. Her first five ...

Films

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    Turner
    Experimental

    Turner
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color, sound, 3 min
    Rental format: 16mm
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    Eye Etc
    Experimental

    Eye Etc
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color, silent, 5 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Ethnographic
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    Five Films
    Experimental

    Five Films
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color and b/w, sound, 11 min
    Rental format: 16mm
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    Soi Meme
    Experimental

    Soi Meme
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color, sound, 6 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Erotic
    • Dance
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    Films by MM Serra 1981-1990 DVD compilation
    Experimental

    Films by MM Serra 1981-1990 DVD compilation
    M. M. Serra

    dvd , color and b/w, sound, 20 min
    Rental format: DVD NTSC
    • Arts / Artists
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    Real To Reel Mama
    Experimental

    Real To Reel Mama
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color, sound, 20 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Ethnographic
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    Five Films (NYC/Nightfall/Framed/PPI/Turner)
    Experimental

    Five Films (NYC/Nightfall/Framed/PPI/Turner)
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color and b/w, sound, 11 min
    Rental format: 16mm
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    Jack Smith's Apartment
    Documentary
    Experimental

    Jack Smith's Apartment
    M. M. Serra

    color, sound, 8 min
    Rental format: Digital file
    • History
    • Films About Film
    • LGBT / Queer
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    Stasis Series I & II I. Still Life; II. Papa's Garden
    Experimental

    Stasis Series I & II I. Still Life; II. Papa's Garden
    M. M. Serra

    16mm, color, sound, 6 min
    Rental format: 16mm

Biography

MM Serra is an experimental filmmaker, curator, author, educator and the Executive Director of Film-Makers Cooperative, the oldest and largest archive of independent media in the world. Her first five films (NYC, 1985, Nightfall, 1984, Framed, 1984, PPI, 1986, Turner, 1987) were preserved and digitized by Anthology Film Archives Preservation series Re-Visions: American Experimental Film 1975-1990. The series “spotlights…the generation of experimental film artists who emerged after the final formation in 1975 of AFA’s Essential Cinema repertory screening cycle.” Anthology describes Serra’s five films as a “DIY Lower East Side spirit, but introduces a distinctive lyrical eroticism.” In 2015, Serra was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts for Enduring Ornament and in 2016 Serra received a New York Council on the Arts for a new film titled Mary Magdalene that was exhibited at the NY Media Center in August 2017. In 2018 MM Serra gave the 9th Annual Experimental Lecture at NYU Cinema Studies, entitled Art(Core): The Films of MM Serra, and in 2019 her lecture was published by Frameworks Journal. 

Serra presented a lecture and screening at the Louvre auditorium in Paris, France on December 1st, 2019. It was held as the Petit Galerie in the Louvre as part of their cycling exhibitions highlighting Renaissance artists such as DaVinci and Michelangelo. The exposition, “Figure d’artiste,” focused on the cinematographic self portrait found in documentary, experimental, and avant-garde film. Serra’s emphasis in the lecture,Visionaries: Self-portraits by experimental filmmakers Marie Menken, Storm de Hirsch, Carolee Schneemann and MM Serra, was on women, literature, and self-portraits in the avant-garde pantheon. Filmmakers and speakers included Raymond Bellour, Pip Chodorov, Ross McElwee, Boris Lehman, and Agnes Varda. 

"M.M. Serra's writings on her practice are among the key theory writings I would recommend to any emerging scholar. She contextualizes her films  within the concept of Art(Core) and links them to  the history of the New York Avant-garde moment. She has developed this concept over multiple decades and still writing/presenting on it, Serra's research is an essential example of practice that is a lived in." - Devon Narine-Singh

Archive

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    32:12

    MM Serra interview with Takahiko Iimura

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    MM Serra interview with Michael Snow

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    61:32

    MM Serra interview with Peggy Ahwesh

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    56:23

    MM Serra interview with George Kuchar

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    44:26

    MM Serra interview with Jennifer Reeves

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    35:08

    MM Serra interview with Lynne Sachs & Bradley Eros

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    32:52

    MM Serra interview with Peter Kubelka

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    40:04

    MM Serra and David Weinstein interview with Jonas Mekas

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    31:23

    MM Serra interview with Philip Glass and Bill Morrison

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    33:07

    MM Serra interview with Ken Jacobs #1

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    30:06

    MM Serra interview with Ken Jacobs #2

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    30:03

    MM Serra interview with Carolee Schneemann #1

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    30:03

    MM Serra interview with Carolee Schneemann #2

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    35:21

    MM Serra interview with Joel Schlemowitz

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    37:23

    MM Serra interview with Lynne Sachs