POETIC MOVEMENTS: Selected Films from Adele Friedman & Jean Sousa | IN PERSON (5/10) | 50 YEARS OF CHICAGO FILMMAKERS
POETIC MOVEMENTS: Selected Films from Adele Friedman & Jean Sousa | IN PERSON (5/10) | 50 YEARS OF CHICAGO FILMMAKERS
Chicago Filmmakers (map) | Friday, May 10 at 7PM Central
Chicago Filmmakers does not deny admission to those who do not have the ability to make a donation. Please email coop [at] chicagofilmmakers.org to inquire about free admission.
Program Description
This two-person show celebrates the works of Jean Sousa and Adele Friedman, two of the most important Chicago-based experimental filmmakers of the last 50 years, whose enduring commitment to the artform continues today. Films to be screened include CHRISTIAN AND MICHAEL and UNTITLED (II) by Friedman; MERMAIDS and selections from her poetic octet by Sousa; and more!
PROGRAM INCLUDES:
Works by Adele Friedman:
Tony (1979) - Black and white, 16MM, Silent, USA, 7 Mins
Untitled II (1983) - Black and white, 16MM, Silent, USA, 7 Mins
Robert’s Place (2004) - Black and white, 16MM, Silent, USA, 6 Mins
Christian and Michael (2006) - Color, 16MM, Silent, Austria/USA, 8 Mins
François: A Place of Time (2015) - Color, 16MM, Silent, France/USA, 12 Mins
Red Cloud (2016) - Black and white, 16MM, Silent, USA, 5 Mins
Works by Jean Sousa:
Pattern Impulse (1979) - 16MM, Sound, 3 Mins
Today is Sunday (1987) - 16MM, Sound, 18 Mins
Alvaro (2016) - Digital, Sound, 7 Mins
Memento (2012) - Digital, Sound, 5 Mins
The Losing Battle (2019) - Digital, Sound, 5 Mins
The Mermaid (2020) - Digital, Sound, 8 Mins
Like Attracts Like (2020) - Digital, Sound, 1 Min
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
ADELE FRIEDMAN
Adele Friedman, originally from Chicago, received her M.F.A. in Film from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. While at SAIC, she was the Teaching Assistant for Stan Brakhage and P. Adams Sitney, and she interviewed Hollis Frampton for the Video Data Bank. Her films are distributed by Light Cone in Paris, France. She has exhibited extensively in over nine countries. One-person exhibitions include Chicago Filmmakers; Millennium Film Workshop, New York; Cineinfinito, Santander, Spain; Euro-Mediterranean Arts at the Museo Hermann Nitsch, Naples, Italy; Scratch Projection, Paris, France; Oesterreichisches Filmmuseum, Vienna, Austria; Arsenal, Kino der Freunde de Deutschen Kinemathek, Berlin, Germany; Frankfurt Deutsches Filmmuseum, Kommunales Kino, Germany; Munich Stadtmuseum-Filmmuseum, Germany; among many other venues. Group exhibitions include “Big as Life: An American History of 8mm Film,” Museum of Modern Art, New York; “Art in Chicago: 1945-1995, Time Arts Chicago,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New York International Film Festival; Onion City Experimental Film Festival; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; among many other international exhibitions and festivals.
Friedman’s first one-person film exhibition was held at Chicago Filmmakers in December 1981. The exhibition received three out of three stars by “The Chicago Reader,” with a full-page review written by Harvey Nosowitz. Before that, in 1978 and 1979, Friedman’s films were included in several group shows at Chicago Filmmakers, including a two-person show with Sarah Delahanty in 1979.
Friedman was a Visiting Artist at the University of Cologne in Germany, and has taught World Cinema and Film Rhetoric at Truman College; Photography and Design at Daley College; and Film Production and Film History at Columbia College, Chicago.
JEAN SOUSA
Jean Sousa moved from the east coast to Chicago in the mid-70’s and became the first graduate student in Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). While there she was a Teaching Assistant in performance while taking classes in the film department and a seminar with Stan Brakhage. She used performance in her films and frequently performed for the camera. Sousa’s films reveal a concern with the physical properties of the medium, aspects of feminism, abstract narrative, and performance.
Sousa’s films have been shown nationally and internationally at the National Film Theater in London, the Image Forum Cinematheque in Tokyo, the Funnel in Toronto, the ICA in Boston, the Cinematheque in San Francisco, the MCA in Chicago, Anthology Film Archives and Millennium in New York, and Chicago Filmmakers among other venues. Her work has been included in numerous festivals, including the International Festival of Avant-Garde Film in London, the Festival international de jeune cinema in Paris, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Big Muddy Film Festival, and the Onion City Film Festival in Chicago. She is the recipient of two Artist Fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and a Regional Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional awards include a residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Cliff Dwellers Fellowship for Artist Residency at Ragdale, a Professional Artist in Residence at Oxbow in Saugatuck, Michigan, and an Artist Residency at the Tyronne Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. She was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2014 and 2017. Ms. Sousa has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the MIT Summer Institute for Film, Photography, and Video at Hampshire College.
Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema
In-person screenings are held at Chicago Filmmakers’ Firehouse Cinema located at 1326 W. Hollywood Ave in the Edgewater neighborhood. Please be sure to arrive 15 minutes prior to showtime and be ready to present your order confirmation number for admission.