Maya Deren

Maya
Deren

“I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick.”

One of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, ...

Films

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    Meshes of the Afternoon
    Experimental

    Meshes of the Afternoon
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 14 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Philosophical
    • Personal / Diary / Journal
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    The Witch's Cradle
    Experimental

    The Witch's Cradle
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, silent, 12 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Spiritual / Mystical
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    At Land
    Experimental

    At Land
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, silent, 14 min
    Rental formats: 16mm, Digital file
    • Psychology / Mental Health
    • Philosophical
    • Arts / Artists
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    A Study In Choreography For Camera

    A Study In Choreography For Camera
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 3 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Body
    • Dance
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    The Very Eye of Night
    Experimental

    The Very Eye of Night
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 15 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Dance
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    Ritual In Transfigured Time
    Experimental

    Ritual In Transfigured Time
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 15 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Philosophical
    • Dance
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    Meditation On Violence
    Experimental

    Meditation On Violence
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 13 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Philosophical
    • Dance
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    Dance Films
    Experimental

    Dance Films
    Maya Deren

    black and white, silent and sound, 47 min
    Rental format: DVD PAL
    • Body
    • Dance
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    Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
    Documentary
    Experimental

    Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
    Maya Deren

    16mm, black and white, sound, 54 min
    Rental format: 16mm
    • Ethnographic
    • Spiritual / Mystical
    • Dance

Biography

One of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer and photographer.

The function of film, Deren believed, like most art forms, was to create an experience; each one of her films would evoke new conclusions, lending her focus to be dynamic and always-evolving.[1] She combined her interests in dance, Haitian Vodou and subjective psychology in a series of surreal, perceptual, black and white short films. Using editing, multiple exposures, jump cutting, superimposition, slow-motion and other camera techniques to her fullest advantage, Deren creates continued motion through discontinued space, while abandoning the established notions of physical space and time, with the ability to turn her vision into a stream of consciousness.

Perhaps one of the most influential experimental films in American cinema was her collaboration with Alexander Hammid on Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). She continued to make several more films of her own, including At Land (1944), A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945), and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)  – writing, producing, directing, editing, and photographing them with help from only one other person, Hella Heyman, as camerawoman. She also appeared in a few of her films but never credited herself as an actress, downplaying her roles as anonymous figures rather than iconic deities.

(wikipedia)

Archive

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    02:00

    Maya Deren filming The Very Eye of Night

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    Maya Deren films in the FMC archive