Gwendolyn Audrey Foster - Experimental Filmmaker

"Dreaming in Aspect Ratio" is a hand-made diary film and experiment in disrupted stereoscopy; an adopted "found" home movie. A playful lyrical queer self-portrait in found queer dream memories.

A cinépoem and Surrealist détournement of found footage, "Dreaming in Aspect Ratio" borrows and appropriates queer childhood memories and film diaries in a brazen and alchemical manner that disrupts cis gendered and straight models of self-portraiture and auto-ethnography.

My film asks the question, "Can memories be replaced, queered, and appropriated into an auto-ethnographic work?"

The playful manipulation of different aspect ratios in the film nods to a life spent enthralled by the poetry of cinema and film art. Bright colors collaged with black and white imagery of the joys of female friendships evoke dreaming and reverie; fabricating a lost queer childhood regained...

Festivals & Installations:

Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque,USA 2022
Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival Touring Season 2022
New York Nil Gallery Installation 2022
Esto Es Para Esto International Film Exhibition, Mexico 2022
FISURA International Experimental Film and Video Festival Mexico 2022
Anti-Film Festival London UK 2022
Berlin Indie Film Festival 2022
Rencontres Internationales Sciences & Cinema Festival, France 2021
Anthology Film Archives (NewFilmmakers NY) 2021
Festival nodoCCS, Travels to Caracas, Barcelona and Norway 2021
Antimatter [Media Art] Film Festival Victoria BC Canada 2021
Deluge Contemporary Art Gallery (Installation) Victoria BC, Canada 2021
Harkat 16mm Film Festival, Mumbai & Berlin 2021
Diminuto Minimum Film Festival, Mexico 2021
ULTRAcinema Festival de Cine Experimental y de Found Footage, Mexico 2021-2022
US Super 8 Film Festival, Rutgers University, 2021
Austin Arthouse Film Festival 2021
Harkat 16mm Film Festival Berlin & Mumbai 2021
Diminuto Minimum Film Festival 2021
InQRvention Art/Film Festival, Brazil, 2021
Altt Alternative Film Festival (Best NA Experimental Short Film) Toronto 2021
KinoDrome International Film Festival, Finalist - Best Found Footage Experimental Film, Cleveland 2021
Nahui Ollin Film Festival Mexico 2021
Kosice International Film Festival Slovakia 2021
LA Underground Film Forum LAUFF (Honorable Mention, Best Experimental Short Film) 2021
Encuentro Para Cinéfagos: Festival de CineArte en la Frontera Venezuela 2021
Revelation Perth International Film Festival
(curated by Jack Sargeant) Australia 2021
Prague International Film Festival 2021
MC Experimental Video & Film Festival (Best Special Effects) New York City 2021

An experimental documentary and surrealist détournement, "Dreaming in Aspect Ratio" is created, in part, from public domain materials. Copyright © 2021 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

Website: gwendolynaudreyfoster.com/articles.html

Portfolio: vimeopro.com/gwendolynaudreyfoster/experimental-films

FilmArte Festival (Berlin and Madrid) 2022
Engauge Experimental Film Festival, Seattle 2021
AlttFF Alternative Film Festival, Toronto (Best Experimental Short Film) 2021
Denver Underground Film Festival 2021
Fotogenia International Film Poetry Festival, Mexico 2021
US Super 8 and Digital Video Film Festival / New Jersey Film Festival, Rutgers University 2022

Rephotographed psychedelic painted and scratched images, collaged and abstracted. An homage to underground experimental poet and filmmaker, Storm de Hirsch; one of the great unsung women in avant-garde film.

“I don't want to put any labels on my films… I never impose on you; you need to find what you have to find.” ― Storm de Hirsch

"Film for Storm de Hirsch" [aka "Women's Time"] is a handmade film and a tribute to legendary filmmaker Storm de Hirsch, one of the pioneers of underground experimental cinema in the 1960s, along with other female directors such as Marie Menken, Barbara Hammer, Gunvor Nelson, Joyce Wieland, Shirley Clarke, Barbara Rubin and many others.

'Film for Storm de Hirsch' includes domestic images of clothespins and film leader, slowed down to suggest the idea of women's waiting, women's time, women's spaces; women artists and filmmakers 'waiting' to be rediscovered. Their work lives on and inspires so many young experimental filmmakers and female video artists who search for the path of the many avant-garde women who paved the way in experimental film, video and art.

De Hirsch was a poet who moved easily from written poetry to experimental film poetry. Storm had no camera, so she began painting, scratching and etching directly onto disgarded film stock and sound tape. Like many women of the era, she was largely written out of film history only to be later rediscovered and celebrated with retrospectives of her films which are now being screened and restored.

Storm de Hirsch’s jubilant films are shot through with a fierce love of life, love, and sexuality. Her best known work is ‘Goodbye in the Mirror’ (1964) a feature shot on location in Rome, which Shirley Clarke called “the first real women’s film.” Her short films are dazzling abstractions, often mixing live action with animation and myriad experimental effects. De Hirsch noted that she often received responses to her work addressed to "Mr. Storm," and suspected that her work was better received when critics presumed she was male. “Peyote Queen” is positively hypnotic. As I wrote, Storm de Hirsch excelled in her “brilliant use of color, pure light, and sensory imaginations of memory and beauty.”

For more on Storm de Hirsch and hundreds of women filmmakers, see my encyclopedia, “Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary."― Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

See also "Mythology for the Soul: The Collected Poems of Storm De Hirsch," collected and edited by Stephen Broomer, and published by Sightline Editions and the Filmmakers Cooperative in New York City.

"Film for Storm de Hirsch" Copyright © 2021 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

Portfolio: vimeopro.com/gwendolynaudreyfoster/experimental-films

Awards, Festivals, Gallery Screenings, Website:
gwendolynaudreyfoster.com/articles.html

"Abstract silver screen dreams of Monica Vitti, Michelangelo Antonioni, and all the great Italian cinema made at Cinecittà in the 1960s."―Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

"I dreamed I was in bed and the bed was moving. I looked down and it was on quicksand. It was sinking deeper and deeper. There's something terrible about reality and I don't know what it is. No one will tell me."―Giuliana (Monica Vitti) in 'Red Desert.'

"When I awake this morning, you were still asleep. As I awoke I heard your gentle breathing. I saw you closed eyes beneath wisps of stray hair and I was deeply moved. I wanted to cry out, to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly. In the half light, your skin glowed with life so warm and sweet. I wanted to kiss it, but I was afraid to wake you."―Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) in 'La Notte.'

Here is a brief article I wrote on 'La Notte': sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/la-notte/

Made with love for legendary Monica Vitti, who lives on forever in her brilliant performances for the silver screen. (November 3,1931 - Feb 2, 2022)

"Dreaming of Monica Vitti"― by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright © 2021 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

Festivals, Screenings, Awards:

Thomas Edison Black Maria Festival and Tour;
Jury’s Citation Award for the 40th Anniversary Season 2021
Sydney Underground Film Festival 2021
The Animattikon Project: Animation in Times of Plague, Cyprus 2021
Experimental Forum LA (Honorable Mention, Best Short Experimental Film) Los Angeles 2021
Luminous Frames Film Festival Denmark 2021
Moving-Image-Arts International Short Film Festival 2021
Les Femmes Underground Film Festival, Los Angeles 2021
Osaka International Film Festival (OIFF) Japan 2021
Women's HERstory Month Marathon Princeton NJ 2021
Fine Arts Film Festival (FAFF) Venice Institute of Contemporary Art 2021
Oxford Film Festival, Oxford Mississippi 2021
Shorts@Fringe Experimental Showcase, Azores Portugal 2021
Minute Madness Film Festival Toronto 2021
Das Filmfest / Oregon State International Film Festival 2021
L’Age d’Or International Arthouse Film Festival India (Luis Buñuel Memorial Award for Best Experimental Short Film) 2021
Berlin Flash Film Festival 2021
Oberhausen Short Film Festival Library 2021
Absurdah International Film Festival Kent, UK 2021
NewFilmmakers at Anthology Film Archives, NYC 2020
AltFF Alternative Film Festival Toronto (Best 1 Minute Experimental Film) 2020
LA Underground Film Forum (Honorable Mention, Best Short Experimental) 2020
PSIAF Palm Springs International Animation Festival, Nominee, Best Experimental Animated Short 2020
KinoDrome: International Motion Picture & Screenplay Festival Cleveland 2020
Couch Film Festival, Toronto (Nominee, Best North American Experimental Film) 2020
Strangelove Time-based Media Festival UK 2020
MicroActs LGBT+ Artists Screening, London 2020
Agora-Off Cultural Space, France 2020
Life Screenings Film Festival, Orlando 2020
Exploding Cinema Festival, London 2020
International Moving Film Festival, Iran: Semi-Finalist, Best Experimental Film Editing and Effects, 2020.

A cineaste's pandemanic lullaby for nodding off to dreamland. Dada dream and cine-poem, made under quarantine. Spring 2020.

"Lullaby for a Pandemic" Copyright © 2020 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.

Festivals and Awards:

Festival “Suspaustas Laikas” MO Museum Lithuania 2021
Esto es Para Esto /Encuentro Internacional de Cineastas EEPE Mexico 2021
Fisura International Festival of Experimental Film & Video 2020
International Moving Film Festival (Semi-Finalist, Best Experimental Film Editing & Effects) Iran 2020
Vortex Festival de Cine Experimental, Mexico 2020
AltFF Alternative Film Festival (Semi-Finalist, Best Documentary) Toronto 2020
Experimental Film Festival, Barcelona 2020
We Make Movies International Festival, LA 2020
Experimental Film Fest,Tulsa 2020
Analogica Touring Film Festival, Italy 2019/2020
Moving-Image-Arts International Short Film Festival, "Portraits," Juried Showcase, Ryerson University of Image Arts, Toronto 2020
FLIGHT/ Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Film Festival (Innovative Languages Collection), Genoa Italy 2020
London Experimental Film Festival (2020)
United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival 2020
Kansas City Underground Film Festival (Special Selection, Finalist) 2020
NJ International Film Festival, Rutgers University 2020
Intima Lente/Intimate Lens. Festival of Visual Ethnography, Italy 2019
CODEC Festival Internacional de Cine Experimental y Vídeo, Mexico City 2019
Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (Video Library) 2019
Expressions Art Movie Film Festival, LA 2019
Kino Climates: Belgrade, Serbia 2019
Atrabilious Experimental Film Festival, Amsterdam 2019
Engauge Experimental Film Festival, Seattle

Solo screenings:
Cinetoon de Nijverheid, Utrecht, Netherlands 2019
Studio 44, Stockholm Sweden, 2018
OT301 Cinema of the Dam’d, Amsterdam, 2018
BWA Contemporary Art Gallery, Poland 2018

From a Super 8mm diary film that I shot long ago and recently found in the basement. I hand-baked, re-photographed, hand-processed, re-edited, and otherwise distorted my footage and added layers of audio. An experimental in memory.

I shot this footage many years ago when we moved from the West Village in New York city to the Midwest, which was very much like moving to the 1950s.

I live here, but this is not my home.

"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it."―Flannery O'Conner

Some thoughts on film, Super 8mm and 16mm:

Film is alive. It is projected in our imagination. Like a phoenix, film comes to life by magic, by resurrection. Film has a living warmth. It breathes. It is a living thing in a way, something alive and yet not; film is liminal, magical and ethereal.

Film grain, scratches, and light streaks are like scars, freckles and wrinkles; tracings of life.

"No Personal Checks" - a film by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Copyright @ 2018 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All Rights Reserved.

Trailer / Teaser for "Mass for Shut-ins."

Festivals, Gallery Screenings & Awards:

NewFilmmakers at Anthology Film Archives NYC 2021
Blow-Up International Arthouse Film Festival Chicago (Semi-Finalist, Best Experimental Short) 2021
Denver Underground Film Festival DUFF (Finalist: Best Abstract Experimental Short) 2021
Exploratory Visions Film Festival Australia 2021
Luminous Frames Film Festival Denmark 2021
Retrospectiva Cine Underground, October TV Argentina/Latin America 2021
Big Muddy Film Festival, Southern Illinois University 2021
US Super 8 & Digital Video Art Festival /New Jersey Film Festival, Rutgers University NJ 2021
Das Filmfest /Oregon State International Film Festival 2021
International Moving Film Festival, SemiFinalist, Iran 2021
Oberhausen Short Film Festival Library 2021
Couch Festival (Winner: Best Experimental Short Film) Toronto 2020
FilmArte Festival (Semi-Finalist, Best Experimental Film) Madrid 2020
AltFF Alternative Film Festival (Winner: Best North American Experimental Short Film) Toronto 2020
LA Underground Film Forum (Honorable Mention, Best Short Experimental Film) 2020
L’Age d’Or International Arthouse Film Festival (Outstanding Achievement Award, Best Experimental Short Film) India 2020
Revelation Perth International Film Festival Australia 2020
Festival Transterritorial de Cine Underground Argentina 2020
VastLab Experimental Film Festival LA 2020
Austin Arthouse Film Festival (Nominee, Svankmajer Award for Best Animation) Austin TX 2020
Video Art Forum, Saudi Arabia 2020
Couched Film Festival, Experimental Short Film Collection, Australia 2020
Exploding Cinema, London 2020
Agora - Off Cultural Space Gallery, France 2020
Undercurrent Art Gallery, Brooklyn 2020

Mass for Shut-ins. A hand-painted 16mm film. Direct animation. 8 minutes. "A fever dream. An infinitely morphing kaleidscopic stained glass window; bells that remind me of the sounds of Amsterdam, my second home after New York. Frantic REM sleep kicks in around 5 minutes..."

A pandemic film made under quarantine, Spring 2020. How do we survive this pandemic? We survive through art & music.

Portfolio: vimeopro.com/gwendolynaudreyfoster/experimental-films

Awards, Festivals, Gallery Screenings, Website:
gwendolynaudreyfoster.com/articles.html

Copyright © 2020 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. All rights reserved.