Bodies&Boundaries2021Zine

Image Courtesy
of Jayne Parker.

www.bodies-and-boundaries.com
Online Film Screening Programme
supported by cinenova.org.
31st May - 1st June 2021
Acknowledgments and thanks to:
Artquest
World on a Wire
Special thanks to Anna Clegg.
Eliza Brady: elizabrady@hotmail.co.uk / elizabrady.com
Anna Clegg: aclegg98@yahoo.co.uk / relevant-confluences.com
2

Bodies & Boundaries is a two day online screening event curated by Eliza Brady.
Eliza is a practicing artist who worked with Cinenova as Distribution Intern
between 2019-2020.
Six films from the Cinenova collection were shown, each linked by their
investigatory considerations of womxns’ bodily autonomy or the lack thereof.
The selection uses experimental, documentary, autobiographical, animation &
fiction filmmaking techniques that render womxn’s bodies and work against the
disciplining of gender conformity.
Bodies & Boundaries probes binary categories of innocence and cruelty, purity
and contamination, desire and repulsion, subversion and obedience, life and
death. The programme aims to uphold the unceasing importance of providing a
platform for working/living womxn artists in a realm that has under-served them
throughout history. Eliza is delighted to take on the role of caretaker, mindfully
moving artists’ work from private to public territory..
3

31st May 2021
1. AGAINST THE CURRENT
1985, UK. 16mins.
Directed By Linda Flint,
Hildur Gladwin, Jane Harris.
2. BIRTHRITES
1977, UK. 53mins.
Directed By Robina Rose.
3. I DISH
1982, UK. 16mins.
Directed By Jayne Parker.
FILM
SCHE
DULE
1st June 2021
4. RASH
1990, UK. 7mins.
Directed by Vicky Smith.
5. WORMCHARMER
1998, UK. 8mins.
Directed by Roz Mortimer.
6. YOU BE MOTHER
1991, UK. 8mins.
Directed by Sarah Pucill.
5
Image Courtesy of Sarah Pucill.

1.
AGAINST THE
CURRENT
1985, UK. 16mins.
Directed By
Hildur Gladwin, Jane Harris & Linda Flint.
6

Against The Current is an experimental documentary
which takes both a historical and a contemporary look
at the lack of control women have over their own
bodies, focusing mainly on childbirth and
developments in reproductive technologies.
Written by Hrafnhildur Gladwin, Jane Harris & Linda
Flint.
7
Image Courtesy of Artists.

8
Images Courtesy of Artist.

2.
1977, UK. 53mins
Directed By Robina Rose.
Birthrites is a film about 'natural'
childbirth.
It presents one woman's
experience of giving birth as
filmed by another woman, without
any insistence on simple
answers.
Fertility is seen as a form of
liberation and autonomy over a
woman’s body.
'With contraception and abortion
readily available today, the
consequence of childbirth is no
longer automatic. Women whose
role is thus more in question,
must nevertheless confront this
aspect of their potentiality.
Whether or not they opt to
embrace it, they must weigh up
what childbirth is. As a woman of
25, it became an issue I felt it
important to deal with. The result
of this involvement is the film'.
(Robina Rose)
BIR
TH
RIT
ES
Edited by Eliza Brady
9
Images Courtesy of Artist.

10

I DISH
3.
1982, UK. 16mins.
Directed By Jayne Parker.
Following the narrative the protagonist is looking very hard. She
isn't looking in the usual places. Sifting, searching, sorting, she
removes the hooks that baited her, all the claims made on her.
She is moving towards autonomy.
Definition to dish: to frustrate, disappoint or defeat. I Dish
explores the physical body, objects and acts of performance
through the unique possibilities of film.
Jayne Parker comments: "In my work I try to see and
understand what the body can do... Inanimate objects can also
be the body. I like the physicality of film and its precision; I like
the sense of space within the frame - filmmaking allows me to
make connections between seemingly unconnected images of
events."
Edited by Eliza Brady
11
Images Courtesy of Artist.

RASH
4.
1990, UK. 7mins.
Directed by Vicky Smith.
12

The hand drawn animated film
Rash presents us with an insight
into female sexual fetishism
through an imaginary voyage
around the body.
Drawing with immediacy and
pressure, monstrous portraits
evolve. Erasing images through
destructive processes.
Written by Vicky Smith.
13
Images Courtesy of Artist.

WO
RMC
HAR
MER
5.
UK, 1998. 8mins.
Directed by Roz Mortimer.
14
Images Courtesy of Artist.

Roz Mortimer’s Wormcharmer presents us with a
dichotomy between a housewife and worms.
We are told in an anatomical report about the life of
worms and forced into making comparisons to what we
see and what we hear. The narration holds its form as
documentary while the melancholic fantasy tells us
otherwise. The housewife and her surroundings are
used as a metaphor for containment, alienation and the
reproductive discourse is shared between worm and
wife.
Written by Eliza Brady.
15

YOU BE
MOTHER
6.
UK, 1991. 8mins.
Directed by Sarah Pucill.
16
Images Courtesy of Artist.

You Be Mother uses stop-frame animation to disrupt the traditional
orders of animate and inanimate, the fluid and the solid. An
hallucinatory space is set up when a frozen image of the artist’s
face is projected onto weighty pieces of crockery atop a table. Ears,
eyes, nose and mouth, all become spatially dislocated as a
determined hand begins to reposition, decant and mix. Events
unfold to the amplified sounds of grinding, pouring and stirring.
Written By Sarah Pucill.
17

Further Reading:
Antrum, H., 2018. CINENOVA: NOW SHOWING. [ebook] London: Cinenova. Available at:
<http://hollyantrum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Cinenova-Now-Showing-Holly-
Antrum.pdf> [Accessed 2 April 2021].
Balsamo, A., 1996. Technologies of the Gendered Body. Durham, North Carolina: Duke
University Press.
Corea, G., 1985. The Mother Machine. Reproductive Technologies from Artificial
Insemination to Artificial Wombs. London: TheWomen ś Press.
Martin, E., 1992. The Woman In The Body. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press Books.
Phillips, A., 2013. Our Bodies Whose Property?. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press.
Satz, A., 2017. The International Journal of Screendance. 3rd ed. Ohio: The Ohio State
University Libraries, pp.120 - 127. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
316751965_Touching_Sound_An_Interview_with_Jayne_Parker_by_Aura_Satz>
[Accessed 2 April 2021].
Shaw, J., 2014. World Worm Charming Championship 2013. [online] Vimeo. Available at:
<https://vimeo.com/74295160> [Accessed 1 May 2021].
Unwurah, N., 1990. Watch The Body Beautiful - BFI Player. [online] BFI Player. Available
at: <<https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-body-beautiful-1990-online>
[Accessed 1 April 2021].
List of QR Codes:
Audio Recording of Q&A with Hrafnhildur Gladwin (via Soundcloud)
Audio Recording of Q&A with Vicky Smith (via Soundcloud)
Audio Recording of Q&A with Roz Mortimer (via Soundcloud)
Audio Recording of Q&A with Sarah Pucill (via Soundcloud)
18