MadCat Film Festival KPFA Radio Interview 1997
Host
What we’re going to start off. Film reviews with Reina Collins here. And then we’re going to be talking about the death of the Notorious B.I.G. The rapper assassinated, basically, 24 years old. Find out what that means to us pop culture. First of all, good morning to Reina Collins.
Reina Collins
Good morning, Chris.
Host
How are you?
Reina Collins
I’m doing terrific.
Host
And you’ve brought in two media victims, I see
Reina Collins
Two medium victims. (laughs) Well, I guess, yes. We have guests in the studio, a.k.a. guests in the studio. I wanted to talk about two things today. The first one is, you know, believe it or not, there are film festivals for almost everything in the Bay area. There’s the International Film Festival, there’s the Jewish Film Festival, there’s the Asian American Film Festival, which just ended, there was a very small German film festival. And all of those festivals each year get bigger. There is only one festival that is tried maybe five different times in different permutations to start, and has never really gone off the ground. And that’s some kind of women’s film festival, and it’s really interesting. I’m not exactly sure why that is. But but it’s happened in many different ways. And so I was really excited when I found out that there’s yet another attempt to start a women’s film festival, and it’s, as I think they’re optimistic, too, because they even call it the first annual mad Cat Women’s Film and Video Festival. And with me to talk about the film festival are the two directors, Ariel Ben Dov and Holen Kahn. And, as well as we’re joined by one of the filmmakers who is actually now in New York, who has a film in the film festival, Lynne Sachs. So I want to welcome all of you. And the first thing is, what inspired you at this point to yet again, try to do something that for some reason or another, hasn’t succeeded before.
Ariella Ben-Dov
Well, I think partially Reina it came from just that reason that, we had heard that there hadn’t been that much support of women’s endeavors. There is no women’s bookstore. There hasn’t been a women’s film festival, in a long time. And I think we wanted to take a really bold look at that. And, figure out why and find a way to change that and find a festival that both did, highlight women’s visions, but also highlighted really extraordinary films, films that were very exciting, films that were very different than what was being shown in the gay and lesbian and the Asian American and the International Film Festival and really find a very new approach that might have, a chance to really take hold in the Bay area because it brought something new to the film circuit here.
Host
Well, and that’s that’s the question there. It’s not that there are not women and women’s films in all of these other festivals. So how is this festival different from other festivals?
Holen Kahn
I think we’re really focusing on films that are, not mainstream, not, straight forward in, their use of the medium. These films are really challenging uses of sound and image and the way that those two meld together. And you’ll see that from, you know, we’re showing films by Barbara Hammer, we’re showing films by, a new filmmaker, Kate Hogg. We’re showing films by Sarah Kennedy, a local filmmaker, and they’re really films that, have not been highlighted and have not had a chance to have a forum to be seen in the Bay area and internationally.
Host
So these films are intellectually challenging for one. But also, I notice that a lot of the films are short and, you know, partly, partly that’s just the fact that there’s a lot of experimental type films that are short. But the other part is that I it makes me wonder about resources that women have to make films. Did you notice, when you were gathering selections? And it seems like most of them are shorter films?
Ariella Ben-Dov
Yeah, I would definitely say that, especially in the, in the US, there’s less women making feature films that…
Host
Wait a minute, the most advanced country in the world!
Ariella Ben-Dov
One of the least funded categories for the arts. So fortunately, unlike and, Europe, there is, I think, more feature length films being done by women. Probably more feature length films being done in general of, good quality. But, we did receive mainly shorts, received some features. But there’s definitely, in the experimental realm, probably, an emphasis on shorts that it’s not necessary to make something two hours, to bring forth your aesthetic and your ideas and that these are films that really have a great deal to say within a very small amount of time. And that’s kind of incredible in that way, and that they, and you can we were able to curate programs where 5 or 6 films could build a two hour program that was really interconnected and really interesting to see that in five different people look at similar things in very different ways.
Holen Kahn
and they really complement each other. I think that’s what we tried to do with these programs is find films that complement, challenge each other so that we can, you know, really, engage our
audience and allow them to question what they’re saying, get involved, sort of break that barrier barrier between maker and viewer and really, you know, have some sort of interaction. I think that’s also why we encourage a lot of filmmakers to come and present their work and answer questions and give feedback. And, that’s also why we’ve created panel discussions, which will be on, Saturday and Sunday morning so that we can really, engage our audiences to, to be active during our festival.
Reina Collins
Well, it’s interesting that, you know, for the films that you chose, you actually chose these small films and put them together. But when it comes to the panel discussions, I mean, one of the panels is about, basically new dimensions, divisions, women and media in the 21st century. I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, that’s summit, right? That’s not a panel. So it seems to me that you’re being pulled in two different directions, both wanting to come up with very sort of concrete programs that really select some kind of poetic momentum. But at the same time, you’re trying to answer very broad questions. Well, I think the there…
Lynne Sachs
Reina?
Reina Collins
Oh, just just a second. We’re joined here on the phone by Lynne Sachs.
Lynne Sachs
Well, I had just to, comment about that because I, I agree that that’s a really, a broad topic, but I also think that one of the things that’s really interesting for us to contemplate in terms of time, and it also sort of comes out of a word that you used calling us. What was it, media victims and your, your studio, is is this issue of Women’s History Month, which is going on right now in March. And so some people resist that idea of ghettoization or, or, you know, is there a need, you know, almost into the 20th century for this kind of focus? And I think it doesn’t come out of a, a defensiveness or, or a need to, to, especially in San Francisco, say that these films are never seen, but it means that there’s a whole dialog going on with the kind of intensity that comes to these films from a different perspective, or maybe a shared perspective and that, you know, I want it to me, one of the biggest issues is how long will we need such festivals? Or maybe we will always need them because they create a new kind of fabric on which to for people to sit and share ideas. And, so I kind of think that the broadness of, of a panel such as, you know, looking at the 21st century isn’t so much, are we going to get lost in the 20th century, or can we make bigger, longer films? But just to keep a sort of, complexity of the way that we, come to our work and keep it going and, and don’t necessarily strive for certain kinds of, goals that perhaps, have been thrown to us like, well, one day you’ll make a feature film and then you’ll and you’ll then fit into a formula.
Reina Collins
Well, let me introduce you before we go on, because Lynne Sachs is a filmmaker, and a couple of her films are actually in the film festival, and currently she’s living in New York and has had a
lot of experience making both experimental films. But films that have a very strong narrative structure to them and sound is an important element, which as a radio person, I really appreciate. So. And you were about to say something or..
Lynne Sachs
I’m sorry I interrupted.
Ariella Ben-Dov
About the panels?
Reina Collins
Yeah.
Ariella Ben-Dov
Yeah. No. That’s fine. Hi, Lynne. Yeah, I just, I think that we we gave it such a broad scope because we really wanted people like Lynne, who’s on on that panel, as well as Barbara Hammer and Gene Finley and the Kennedy to really bring up their own experiences and to use their visions because it is about new vision and new directions, and that can be a very small topic or can be a very large general topic. And it’s, it’s broad, it’s opened up by these, these women’s experiences and the way that they see their futures and the films that they plan to make and what they’ve come from before and their influences. And I think that’s something that will come across.
Reina Collins
Well, Lynne, I wanted to talk to you about your films that are going to be in the film festival. One of them, Which way is East: notebooks from Vietnam, which is a film that you made with your sister. You went on a tour of Vietnam with your sister right now, the, the thing that’s very interesting to me about it, besides the fact that I just went to Vietnam, is is the fact that you were an observer in another culture where your sister was actually living and you were making a film for an audience that’s here. And in some ways, that raises many of the questions that I think are addressed in different ways in the film festival. So talk about your film and relationship to those kinds of issues.
Lynne Sachs
Oh, that’s a wonderful question. It’s very provocative. First of all, I wanted to say that, I think that, the film is very much from the perspective of two women, but also two sisters and two sisters who see a place and perhaps see history in very different ways. So we come from this shared space of shared home, origins, education, whatever. But then there’s this, there’s this split which has to do with first impressions. And when you this sort of perhaps, obvious and maybe superficial questions that one asks in the very beginning when one arrives, especially in Vietnam, you bring this baggage, so to speak. And, and she had a sort of a totally different kind of sensitivity because she’d been there for a couple of years, and it was a sensitivity to things like the changing of the seasons or foods or what some people do. I’m not claiming this call a kind of feminine perspective, because it’s maybe more domestic, or maybe it’s connected to children’s lives or connected to certain kinds of experiences that women have, that men have as well. Of course, that we come to these things and from different places. And, it’s very much a conversation between the two of us. And, there’s a lot of resistance. There’s a way there’s a point in the film that where we both talk about photography, in particular, and I have this commitment to sort of, collecting, capturing, which are awful terms. And she has this, this resistance to, to doing that at all, but just sort of taking it in and, and so it’s a lot it’s a film that’s very much about travel and very much about how we have a shared, what I call, horizon line with people and with Vietnamese, particularly Vietnamese of my generation, the 30s. And, we have a shared horizon, but we see it and from very different perspectives. So, that’s kind of how the, the film work and it’s hard to say how it fits into a, like a women’s program, except that, it’s very much our perspective. And, and at the time that I was there, which was in 92, there were so many, returning soldiers, and so they brought a very different set of expectations.
Host
Reina Collins, I’m I’m curious, you said that this this film that, that Lynne and the filmmaker just described, Lynne Sachs. Typified for you sort of what the theme of this whole, film festival is the Mad Cat Women’s Film and Video Festival. Next weekend at the Roxy, in in San Francisco, that it was bringing things from another place to show the people at home or something like women are a foreign country. Is that what you meant? What did you mean by that? That was very intriguing.
Reina Collins
Well, I think that, you know, as somebody who reviews films, who are both both documentary films as well as feature films, that that there’s certain images that we see over time that we see over and over again. And in some ways, you know, I’ll talk about a film and you say, well, I saw a film about that. And that was in 1953. You know, here they are thinking about remaking The Women, and the women is a perfect example, where it’s these women gathered together. And what do they talk about? Men, that’s all they talk about the whole film. So.
Host
And all the jealousies and competition.
Reina Collins
Yes. That’s right. You remember that film and.
Host
Oh, yeah!
Reina Collins
So now most of the films we have, there aren’t many characters that are women in them. And if they are, what are they doing? You know, there’s the other woman, you know, there’s certain roles that we see.
Host
Stereotypes, mhm.
Reina Collins
Yes, they are. And so what I think the hard part about experimental films is, is that we’re not used to either experiencing different kinds of images or having to kind of think and respond to those images. So I think some of them are very hard to watch and some of them are different for, somebody who’s really used to a very simple narrative structure to watch. But, other ones, I think anybody could see and say, well, that’s not experimental. That just feels like this reflection of my life. So I think that there’s a wide range. So what I what the film festival, as somebody who hasn’t seen the films in the film festival, but from reading about it seems to be trying to integrate those things so that people can get different ideas and look at things differently. Now, some of them might be sort of unacceptable, some of them might be boring, but some of them might be incredibly intriguing and fascinating because you’re looking at something in a different way. As you know, if you haven’t gone to festivals that focus on those kinds of films.
Host
Now, I’m tempted to ask Holen and Ariella which films are the boring ones, but I won’t do that. (laughs)
Reina Collins
Well, the thing is,
Holen Kahn
None of them!
Host
And the thing is, it might be boring to you, but it might not be boring to me or to everybody since they’re talking about personal reflections. I mean, you might be able to hear 20 poems on love and other people might say another poem, on love?
Holen Kahn
You know, some of them might be less accessible. I wouldn’t say any of them are boring. I’d say that it might make you feel uncomfortable. They might make you feel confused. They might make you, you know, put you in a quandary of some sort.
Host
But now Holen Kahn you have a film and in this festival, what? And the filmmaker will be in person, Holen Kahn and, this is, Sunday the 23rd, 7 p.m. you’re part of a program with, an Australian woman’s film. Your film has, basically a misquote from Gilbert and Sullivan. What is your film about? Your grandmother?
Holen Kahn
It is about my grandmother, who I never knew, she died before I was born. And it’s really about reconstructing identity and how we pass on stories and folklore and genetics. It’s about the fears of breast cancer and, and violence and and, and love and desire and how all of these things interconnect and how they informed my grandmother’s life and therefore how they inform my life and kind of how our choices have changed over the last 70 years and kind of coming of age in the 1920s versus coming of age and the 1970s, you know, in the or 80s. And, it really it was amazing because it’s all constructed through archival footage that my grandparents took from 1929 to 1952 and watching these films…
Host
Wonderful they had that.
Holen Kahn
And yeah, and learning their lives, really, and manipulating their lives in many ways. It was an incredible experience, and I think I actuallyReina really captured it when she said that these are films about experiencing. And I think that these films are experiential even, you know, and that they’re really about, they are about challenging the viewer into thinking about their reactions and their interpretations of image and sound. And I, I tried to really do that in my film. It’s it’s heavily layered sound and, it’s about how we perceive things. And I think a lot of the films are like that, that some of them are much more straightforward and some of them really are very accessible. There are pieces that are narrative that are just really well told stories, beautifully done. Other ones are much more visual, like extraordinarily visual and, really hold you on the edge of your seat trying to make way through the images. They’re like puzzles that you put together, and they’re very exciting as you as you place the pieces.
Host
And speaking to the conscious, the subconscious, the unconscious, they’re all these very subtle layers that these things could all be calling to and making various people comfortable or uncomfortable as a result.
Reina Collins
Well, that actually raises a question. Lynne, your new film, A Biography of Lilith, talks about how verbal language, doesn’t really deal with what’s going on, and you’re trying to figure out another way to present the information in the material. You know, when I think of trying to organize a film like that, I just think, well, that’s kind of an overwhelming task because there’s so much that could be said. How did you how did you conceptualize what you were trying to do with that film?
Lynne Sachs
Well, that film, is, it started off with a myth, which is all oral history. And then it went into it’s a piece of Jewish mysticism. And so it’s very much about text. But then again, the text was so limited and in a lot of ways, and I was interested in the way that the story of Lilith, who was Adam’s first partner before Eve, she was thrown out of the garden because she wanted to be on top in sex. That’s basically all that’s written. But then there was so much about the story that has traveled again, through through time and through culture, and not necessarily only Jewish. Babylonian Aramaic was found all over the place. So, what I did, I it’s a it’s my first musical and it’s full of, experimentations with, opera singers and, there’s a the group, Charming Hostess in Berkeley did a couple of pieces like, for the film they wrote.
Reina Collins
and, of course, immediately me, hearing (sings) “I enjoy being you know, girl”
Lynne Sachs
But, well, it’s kind of a musical, but it’s also very much more ephemeral than that. But I say it’s a musical because it’s full of all original music. So it’s kind of like working with words and you hear words, but then you don’t quite pick it up because it’s mostly like bits of snatches of, of poetry. And then that film, actually, I could never say it was either a documentary, a narrative, or experimental because it’s absolutely all three. It’s a woman playing Lilith, and it’s her life revealed in a sort of documentary way. And then it’s full of strange images. It’s just spiders and jellyfish.
Reina Collins
So that sounds, you know, really interesting. And I think in some ways that sums up maybe what you’re trying to do with the Mad Cat women’s film and video. First of all, it runs March 21st, 22nd and 23rd at the Roxy Theater in San Francisco, which is at 16th and Valencia. And if you want information and programs, you can call (415) 339-8170. That’s (415) 339-8170 for the Mad Cat women’s Film and Video Festival. I want to thank all three of you for joining me. Lynne Sachs on the phone. And then we also have Ariella Ben-Dov and Holen Kahn and many interesting films coming up.
Host
Thank you, Reina, for, bringing this all to our attention. And good luck. The first annual…