Experimental film, in opposition to mainstream Hollywood film, allows a subjective point of view that puts the personal voice center-stage. In the history of experimental film, there is a tradition to explore the autobiographical. Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Leighton Pierce, Jay Rosenblatt and many other experimental male filmmakers have often explored their domestic lives as source material for t
heir films. Their work is celebrated and recognized for being personal, poetic and introspective. Stan Brakhage is considered to be one of the “giants” of Avant Garde filmmaking and his work is seminal on the experimental filmmaking canon. One of Brakhage’s most screened films is “Window, Water Baby Moving”, in which he filmed the birth of one of his children. Although there are a number of filmmakers who are fathers celebrating that perspective on film, women filmmakers tend to be more timid about approaching the point of view of motherhood in their work. The “Kid On Hip, Camera in Hand” program was compiled by two filmmaker/educators: Enie Vaisburd and Jennifer Hardacker. Both are filmmakers and mothers of young children, and motherhood informs the manner in which they create. They began researching other filmmakers who have the same approach and thus the program “Kid on Hip, Camera in Hand” was created. Films shown include:
A Bump was a Pearl (2008) by Johanna Hibbard
I Wonder What You Will Remember of September (2004) by Cecilia Cornejo
Set, Set Spike (2002) by Emily Hubley
Walk (2011) by Enie Vaisburd
West (2011) by Kathryn Ramey
Window Work (2000) by Lynne Sachs
Winged (2010) by Jennifer Hardacker
You Can See the Sun in Late December (2010) by Sasha Waters
Hardacker and Vaisburd hope that “Kid on Hip, Camera in Hand” will make this point of view visible and celebrated in experimental film.
