Our screening, from the UWM Film Studies Collection’s Queer Media library, highlights three early films by Sadie Benning. Sadie’s work stands apart (including from their father, James Benning) in its DIY, punk rock, stream-of-consciousness storytelling. In this session, we will interrogate the difficulty of accessing their films through screening a VHS copy directly as a prelude to our VHS digitization project. These works, filmed in Benning’s bedroom using available materials on a Fisher-Price PXL 2000, are prime examples of the resulting “Pixelvision” style for which they are known. In tandem with Pixelvision is the difficulty in deciphering the images onscreen and risk of loss while rerecording in another medium. While watching a good-quality VHS release of “A Place Called Lovely,” “It Wasn’t Love,” and “Girlpower,” we aim to demonstrate both the importance of preserving queer voices through media while emphasizing the value of using already existing media for exhibition.
Since 2016, IndieCollect has digitally restored more than 80 films — half of them by women directors. Kirsten Larvick (Women’s Film Preservation Fund), Sandra Schulberg (restoration producer), and Eva Yuma (restoration colorist) focus on the 4K restoration of A Question of Color by Kathe Sandler, whose negative had to be pieced together with help from the Black Film Center & Archive. How IndieCollect works with archive and distribution collaborators is part of the story, as well as our approach to programming restored films by women in theaters and other venues. We’ll also report on launch of 20-title “American Independents” film series & restoration summit from Dec 6-12 at Laemmle’s Monica Film Center to mark 10th year of our #SaveIndieFilm campaign and educate various publics about the demise of works on celluloid.
Kirsten Larvick is the Director of Special Projects at IndieCollect, where she helps filmmakers develop strategies for preserving their work through the Legacy Services initiative. Since 2009, she has co-chaired the Women's Film Preservation Fund (WFPF), which is dedicated to protecting... Read More →
Eva Yuma is IndieCollect’s Senior Restoration Colorist where she has restored Solomon Northup’s Odyssey by Gordon Parks, Bitter Cane by Ben Dupuy & Kim Ives, Shadow Magic by Ann Hu, Hairstory by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Suzanne Suzanne by Camille Billops, Suspect by Darnell... Read More →
Sandra Schulberg is President of IndieCollect and producer of its restorations. Previously she restored her father’s documentary, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, and authored the monograph “Filmmakers for the Production,” which was turned into the eponymous documentary film... Read More →
