Hollywood
USA / 2008 / 12 min / DVD / B&W
Director: Stephanie Owens
A woman’s desire to be seen is achieved as a filmmaker investigates her routine, interests, and hobbies, all of which express her passion for Hollywood.
Eight Women
USA / 2009 / 29min / Mini DV / Colour, B&W
Director: Laura Bouza
A portrait of eight women, now in their eighties, reflects on the delicate balance of their lives as homemakers and members of a 1960s modern dance group. A rendering of the intersections of motherhood, marriage, and movement.
My White Baby
Ghana, USA / 2008 / 22min / DVD / Colour, B&W
Director: Akosua Adoma Owusu
Me Broni Ba is a lyrical portrait of hair salons in Kumasi, Ghana. The tangled legacy of European colonialism in Africa is evoked through images of women practicing hair braiding on discarded white baby dolls from the West. The film unfolds through a series of vignettes, set against a child's story of migrating from Ghana to the United States. The film uncovers the meaning behind the Akan term of endearment, me broni ba, which means “my white baby.”
Speech Memory
USA / 2007 / 23min / DVD / B&W
Director: Caroline Key
Father and daughter discuss the lives of past generations to form a posthumous portrait of the filmmaker’s grandfather, Key Jin Yun. A deaf-mute Korean born in Japan during its occupation of Korea, Key Jin Yun, was raised fully integrated into Japanese society, learning only written Japanese and Japanese sign language. In 1945, with Japan’s defeat and the end of the occupation, he and his family returned to Korea. Speech Memory examines the impact of immigration and cultural assimilation through the details of Key Jin Yun’s life, revealing the shifting complexities of language, national identity, and memory.
The Wet Season
USA, Suriname / 2008 / 47min / DVD / Colour
Directors: Brigid McCaffrey & Ben Russell
An experimental ethnography composed of community-generated performances, re-enactments and extemporaneous recordings, this film functions doubly as an examination of a rapidly changing material culture in the present and as a historical document for the future. Whether the record is directed towards its subjects, its temporary residents (film-makers), or its Western viewers is a question proposed via the combination of long takes, materialist approaches, selective subtitling, and a focus on various forms of cultural labour.
About The Curator
SOMPOT CHIDGASORNPONGSE (b.1980), Boat, graduated with a bachelor degree in architecture and received Best Thesis Award from Chulalongkorn University. He, then, began working in the film industry; both local and international. He worked as an assistant director in many of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films, including, Tropical Malady, Worldly Desire, and Syndromes and a Century. Along with Thunska Pansittivorakul, he won top PPP prize in Pusan International Film Festival 2005, Korea, for a film proposal "Heartbreak Pavilion" (produced by Apichatpong Weerasethakul). His personal shorts were shown at many film festivals in various countries. He's currently an MFA candidate in Film/Video at California Institute of the Arts. Visit his website : http://www.sompotboat.com
