Red Velvet Seat. Rediscovering women's films and writings

May 2 to 3, 2007

 
In the course of two extraordinary thematic evenings hosted by NYU professor Antonia Lant, the Film Museum presents newly restored works by filmmakers who between 1910 and 1990 dared challenge the male domain of cinema. Over the past decade the Women’s Film Preservation Fund in New York has preserved more than 50 endangered films by women for the future. 12 of these works can now be seen at the Film Museum.

They range from Maya Deren’s legendary documentary on Haiti, Divine Horsemen, to early comedies (a.o. by Alice Guy-Blaché) to The Women’s Film (1971), a highly significant film of the US women’s movement. Also showing are works by Meredith Monk, Mary Ellen Bute, Gunvor Nelson and many others.

Concurrently the OeFM will present Antonia Lant’s new book featuring writings on Cinema by women. The collection Red Velvet Seat (re-)discovers a rich female film culture supported by directors, writers and actresses as well as by fashion and film magazines. Among others, the book includes essays by Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Zelda Fitzgerald, Colette, Katherine Mansfield, Anita Loos, Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Lillian Gish and Sarah Bernhardt.