Screening
On Wednesday, March 13th, at 7pm, join us at the FMC Screening Room (475 Park Avenue South, 6th Floor) for two essential works by prolific filmmaker and longtime FMC member Alexis Krasilovsky!
After making the film End of the Art World in 1971, Alexis Krasilovsky embarked on an award-winning career as a filmmaker. She received an MFA in Film/Video at Cal Arts, with her thesis film Exile funded in part by Norman Lear and Barbra Streisand, which aired nationally on PBS. Among her films are two documentary features for which she traveled to 20 countries: Let Them Eat Cake and Women Behind the Camera, the short version of which is entitled Shooting Women. Her 2021 pandemic poetry film, The Parking Lot of Dreams, has also screened in over a dozen festivals worldwide. Krasilovsky currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a member of the WGAW’s Committee of Women Writers and is collaborating with Shameem Akhtar of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on a female-driven children’s screenplay about tigers.
End of the Art World (1971), which has recently been restored by a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to the Yale Film Archives, is a fascinating art documentary that features the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Michael Snow. Of the film, Joan Braderman wrote in Artforum in 1971: "Krasilovsky presents a catalogue of interviews with modern artists in which the shooting style as well as the aural material's format rehearses the personal style, the aesthetics, and the assumption of each artist about the nature of his art." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times raved: "With ferocious wit, Ms. Krasilovsky sends up New York's art scene in End of the Art World. In essence, Ms. Krasilovsky uses the sounds and images of the usual art documentary to create her own work of art."
Shooting Women (2008) is a global documentary by Krasilovsky and producer Vanessa Smith, about camerawomen who survive the odds in Hollywood, Bollywood and beyond. For seven years, they followed the lives of camerawomen in Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Senegal, the United States, and other countries: camerawomen who film underwater, in war zones, and on major sets in Hollywood and Bollywood. The film’s 50 interviews include top female Directors of Photography, such as Akiko Ashizawa, JSC (Japan), Joan Hutton, CSC (Canada), Brianne Murphy, ASC (USA), Vijayalakshmi (India), Jan Kenny, ACS (Australia), Sonja Rom (Germany) and the men and women who have been supportive of their struggles. Shooting Women celebrates not only the history of pioneer camerawomen in a male-dominated field, but individual camerawomen’s visions.
Since 2008, other documentaries about camerawomen have emerged to great success. Part of the reason that Shooting Women is being shown again now after so many years is because the documentary provides an historical context for the issue of safety on film sets. This issue came to light so glaringly and tragically when Director of Photography Halyna Hutchins was killed at age 42 on October 21, 2021, when a prop gun was discharged by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of "Rust", which she was filming. Shooting Women has always meant to honor the women who shoot films, television productions, commercials, documentaries, art films, often against the odds -- not shooting AT women. This terrible tragedy could have been prevented with stronger safety set measures. Halyna Hutchins, RIP. This screening is dedicated to you.
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The Film-Makers' Cooperative is thrilled to show both of these films at our on-site screening room, with Krasilovsky and Smith in attendance for a Q&A afterwards.
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Vanessa Hedwig Smith is a painter, filmmaker, and writer who has lived and worked in India, Nepal, England, and the US. Her series of 94 short films, The Art of Impermanence, was shown for six months at a Venice Biennale satellite show. She is proud of a film she produced for the BBC, Abortion, Rape, Prison, which won an Amnesty International Award, helped free a fourteen-year old girl from a 20-year prison sentence, and was part of an international effort to change Nepalese law. She is co-founder of Let’s Talk, a series of events and programs on mental health issues. Her first chapbook of poetry, Room Tone, is being published by Finishing Line Press. Please visit VanessaHSmithPictures.com.
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PROGRAM:
- End of the Art World (1971), Color, sound, digital file, 33 minutes.
- Shooting Women (2008), Color, sound, digital file, 53 minutes.
Total Run Time: 86 minutes.