monica freeman, ca 1977 • Photo: john wise
feminist elsewheres
April 19-20, 2025
Two-day film and conversation program, Maysles Documentary Center
Queer-feminist film work is collective, transnational, and complicated. The networks that emerge from it are expansive, ephemeral, and in need of care. With this program feminist elsewheres is looking for connections between historical and contemporary feminist film, tracing the stories, times, and border-crossing lineages of its existence.
From the Black feminist film scene in the US and film gatherings in Europe in the 1970s to poetic negotiations of borders and memories between Nigeria, Thailand, and Germany, this program is an unfinished search for the significance of queer-feminist film.
The event opens with a selection of films based on the feminist elsewheres research on the 1973 First International Women’s Film Seminar, Berlin. Other programs will include the complete works of Monica Freeman, contemporary films by Arisa Purkpong & Jana Buch as well as the German Television production The Snake in My Bed by LA Rebellion director Omah Diegu.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19TH – 6:30 PM
OPENING RECEPTION
SATURDAY, APRIL 19TH – 8:00 PM
CELEBRATING MONICA FREEMAN and FRIENDS
Just Briefly
Louise Fleming, US 1975, 19 min.
Valerie: A Woman, An Artist, A Philosophy of Life
Monica Freeman, US 1975, 15 min.
A Sense of Pride: Hamilton Heights
Monica Freeman, US 1977, 15 min.
The Children’s Art Carnival: Learning Through the Arts
Monica Freeman, US 1978, 17 min.
Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People
Ayoka Chenzira, US 1984, 10 min.
Panel conversation with Monica Freeman, Christine Choy, Louise Fleming, and Jennifer Lawson
Moderation by Hayley O’Malley
This program celebrates Monica Freeman’s work that spans over four decades in filmmaking, programming, and teaching Black feminist film history. Freeman’s Valerie: A Woman, An Artist, A Philosophy of Life (1975) explores the practice of the sculptor Valerie Maynard who she met in the flourishing Black arts context of the Studio Museum in Harlem. 1977 she made A Sense of Pride: Hamilton Heights with an all-female crew on local biographies and the history of Hamilton Heights. She produced and directed her last short Children’s Art Carnival: Learning Through the Arts in 1978, a documentary on the Hamilton Heights based youth art education center. The films were widely seen in their time, playing at countless international venues, such as FESPACO, and helped pave the way for other Black feminist filmmakers. The program is framed by Louise Fleming’s Just Briefly (1975) that Freeman curated as part of the 1976 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts in New York City and Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People (1984) directed by Ayoka Chenzira who previously worked on Monica’s films.
After the screening she will be joined by Christine Choy, Louise Fleming, and Jennifer Lawson for a panel discussion of her work.
We invite you to celebrate the work of Monica Freeman and friends at the reception at 6.30pm that will take place before the program.
$15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
Includes Opening Reception
$40 / ALL EVENTS on BOTH DAYS
feminist elsewheres began as a festival in 2023 in response to two events that took place in Berlin: the 1973 First International Women’s Film Seminar and its 1997 revisitation ...the point is to change it. Films, Festivals, Feminism. It now operates as a collective at the intersection of archival research, film programming, and artistic experimentation.
No film stands alone.
No history is stable.
feminist elsewheres is many.
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