This Beguiling Membrane

“This Beguiling Membrane” explores affinities between bodies and bodies of work, bringing together seven women filmmakers. The program includes rarely screened films by Chick Strand, Peggy Ahwesh, Carolee Schneeman, and Barbara Hammer as well as more recent work by Amy Halpern, Charlotte Pryce, and Sofia Theodore-Pierce. 

Linked by a playful preoccupation with corporeality, language, and fragments of ordinary life, these films reflect an ongoing aesthetic dialogue between generations of women looking through the camera and at one another. 

The program, like the films themselves, feels like an exercise in intimacy. An invitation to connect. A love affair amongst women/filmmakers.

Featuring:

Fever Dream by Chick Strand

1979, 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.

A wet hot dream about sensuality. Courtesy of Canyon Cinema.

Half Halt by Sofia Theodore-Pierce

2025, 16mm & Super 8 film to digital, color, sound, 11 min.

In horsemanship a half halt is a pulse on the rein to say, hey I’m still here, holding you. It indicates something around the bend, a warning and a reassurance. Here, a series of interruptions are held together by those who catch me when I'm falling. Rosie reads their poem. Grace and I brave the dark. Camera slips. Record skips. Lovers reunite through a viewfinder. We’re all filming each other on horseback. A meditation on intimacy in times of offscreen emergency, both personal and political. Seizures as elevators. Courtesy of the artist.

Of This Beguiling Membrane by Charlotte Pryce

2020, 16mm, color, sound, 5 min.

The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate. This work takes the outward form of a nature film. But observation gives way to illusion and the surface gives way to murky waters strewn with debris of those who have succumbed to its lures (the Lady of Shalott, Ophelia). They remain trapped; menacing reminders of the dangerous seduction of beauty, and anger of the elusive spirits who resent being examined. Courtesy of Lightcone.

Body Collage by Carolee Schneemann

1967, 16mm on video, b&w, silent, 4 min.

"Body Collage" is a visceral "movement-event" from 1967, in which Schneemann paints her body with wallpaper paste and molasses, and then runs, leaps, falls into and rolls through shreds of white printer's paper, creating a physicalized corporal collage. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix.

exterior turbulence by Sofia Theodore-Pierce

2023, 16mm film to HD video, color, sound, 11 min.

Seizure dreams, horses, and long-distance conversations from bed. Loose reenactments from Marguerite Duras Baxter, Vera Baxter. A year of stormy weather and temporal rupture recalled in fragments. Featuring my mother and other star-crossed lovers. Courtesy of the artist.

Haircut by Barbara Hammer

1978, 16mm, color, silent, 5 min.

A personal ritual of strength is getting a haircut. Courtesy of Lightcone.

Jane, Looking by Amy Halpern

2020,16mm, color, silent, 2 min.

A portrait of Jane Wodening (Brakhage), a person who was the subject of the camera for many years looks back at us with an interrogating stare. Courtesy of Canyon Cinema.

Doppelganger by Peggy Ahwesh 

1987, Super 8mm to digital, color, sound, 9 min.

An intimate look at friendship, the performative impulse and the nature of the confessional mode. An improvisation for the camera, shot in Super 8mm and hand processed in the tradition of the experimental underground. From 1987, featuring Renate Walker. Courtesy of the artist.

Curated with Sofia Theodore-Pierce, filmmaker, artist, and Assistant Professor of Cinema at Binghamton University.

Total runtime: 54 min.

Part of our "Experimental Lens" series. Still from "Of This Beguiling Membrane" by Charlotte Pryce and "exterior turbulence" by Sofia Theodore-Pierce.

Please visit our Content Advisory page to access resources for identifying sensitive content and evaluating the age-appropriateness of each film title.