Sarah Friedland
@motionxpictures
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filmmaker x choreographer. teaching artist. FAMILIAR TOUCH premiering at 81st @la_biennale. Movement Exercises Trilogy distributed by @videodatabank
Brooklyn, NY
Joined February 2014
We spent 4+ hours waiting cuffed in the bus blocking grand army traffic because none of the dozens of cops knew how to drive it! Solidarity w/ the bus drivers! ✊🏻.
Bus drivers refused to transport protestors from last night's Seder in the Streets to the precinct, forcing cops to drive the busses. Power and solidarity to the union bus drivers with @twu100 who refuse to collaborate with the NYPD, which commandeers MTA busses for mass arrests.
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Grazie mille alla famiglia DeLaurentiis per questo grande onore!.
Sono felice che Familiar Touch della regista statunitense Sarah Friedland abbia vinto il Premio Venezia Opera Prima Leone del Futuro Luigi De Laurentiis, giunto alla 28a edizione. Grazie a Giuseppe Tornatore che ha consegnato il premio, ideato in memoria di mio padre Luigi
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Overjoyed to announce that my debut feature film FAMILIAR TOUCH will premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival @la_Biennale in the Orizzonti Competition.
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As a former Berlinale “Talent,” I say: shame on you, Berlinale. This weaponization of false accusations of anti-Semitism against pro-Palestinian artists who give your festival its value is unforgiveable.
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Oy vey @tenementmuseum. I used to lead a tour called “Hard Times,” which, among other things, explored the need for mutual aid and economic support for workers during recessions. Yesterday, they fired me and 75 of my colleagues during what the museum might call a. “hard time.”.
Yesterday, the Tenement Museum permanently laid off 76 employees, including the entire part-time education staff.
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This photo was taken a little over a year ago, the night we wrapped production on FAMILIAR TOUCH. Today, we premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
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Spent the 2nd night of Passover getting arrested with hundreds of other anti-Zionist Jews at an emergency seder on Schumer’s doorstep demanding an end to US funding of genocide and divestment from Israel. Next year in Palestinian liberation! Solidarity w/ the student encampments!.
Police are arresting hundreds of American Jews with @jvplive, @ifnotnoworg, and @jfrejnyc as they hold an emergency Passover seder at Senate @SenSchumer’s doorstep.
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Know an older adult who wants to try filmmaking? I’m teaching a free workshop for older adults @BronxMuseum on 4/18. No prior experience needed. Workshop will be accessible for folks with memory loss and other disabilities. Sign up:
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Proud to have joined 1500 fellow anti-Zionist Jews and allies today, risking arrest, as we shut down the Manhattan Bridge, demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the occupation, and a Free Palestine!.
HAPPENING NOW: Thousands are shutting down the Manhattan Bridge on the busiest travel day of the year, refusing to leave until Biden calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We will make business as usual impossible until the US stops funding and fueling a genocide.
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SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES!! So excited to work with @musicboxfilms in bringing our film to audiences in North America.
We're thrilled to bring Sarah Friedland’s (@motionxpictures) prizewinning @la_Biennale film FAMILIAR TOUCH to theaters next year! Featuring a powerful performance by Kathleen Chalfant, it is a testament to the universal need for touch and belonging in an increasingly disconnected.
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What a tremendous gift to hear my cast, crew, and friends honking across this lot @TheNYFF. A sound I won’t forget. 🙏🏼
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I’m absolutely honored and delighted to be one of @FilmmakerMag 25 New Faces of Independent Film this year! Was a joy getting to speak with Scott Macaulay about my practice:
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Delighted to be premiering my new short film TRUST EXERCISES @TheNYFF in Currents this fall! The final film in my Movement Exercises trilogy.
Currents also features seven robust shorts programs with work from Radu Jude, Bi Gan, Mark Jenkin, Simón Velez, Nicolás Pereda, Courtney Stephens, Ben Russell, Mary Helena Clark, Dani & Sheilah ReStack, Lois Patiño, Sarah Friedland & more! . Full lineup:
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Tickets are now on sale for @TheNYFF! My film Trust Exercises is playing in Currents program 9 on 10/10 and 10/12. Here’s our poster designed by the brilliant pa-i-ka:
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There are still a bunch of spots open in my FREE filmmaking workshop for older adults @MayslesCinema on Friday. Spread the word to the Manhattan elders you know!
Next Friday I'm facilitating a FREE filmmaking workshop for older adults @MayslesCinema in partnership with @artsandmindsorg. Sign up here and spread the word:
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Honored to be a 2021 @NYSCArts/@nyfacurrent fellow in Video/Film, and feeling so v excited and grateful cuz it means I can start filming the third short in my trilogy about movement exercises! 🕺🏻🎥✨.
Announcing: our 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellows & Finalists in Fiction, Folk/Traditional Art, Interdisciplinary Work, Painting, & Video/Film! Congratulations to all & thank you to the Panelists who helped to select this year's recipients. Details @NYSCArts
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“in the several days that we spent arguing about whether the left was sufficiently decent about Hamas’s victims, Israel geared up its genocide machine—which it now is releasing.”.
"How to grieve, what meaning to give those tears, is cruelly a political question whether we like it or not," @gabrielwinant writes.
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Thank you @IndieWire critics for picking FAMILIAR TOUCH as Best 1st Film of the fall fests!!.
Our 2024 fall festival critics survey is in and one wildly ambitious movie led the pack:
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"Familiar Touch extends us the same respect it affords its characters; this isn’t a film interested in connecting the dots as it is in letting us luxuriate in its enigmas, silences, and mysteries. It is also, unlike so many other dramas of its ilk, refreshingly joyful.".
It’s a wrap! For my last @mubinotebook Venice Dispatch, words on some of the festival’s best (APRIL, FAMILIAR TOUCH, THE BRUTALIST…), films that shared the same belief in cinema’s power to surprise and mesmerize:
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Today I linked arms with fellow anti-Zionist Jews + allies with @IfNotNowOrg @JvpAction as we blocked all the gates to the White House to demand an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and to refuse the weaponization of Jewish grief against Palestinians. #FreePalestine #CeasefireNOW.
BREAKING: American Jews and allies have now blocked 4+ doors to the White House. We’re prepared to put our bodies in the way of more slaughter — we’re ready to stay here until Biden forces a ceasefire.
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Honored to be nominated for Someone to Watch @filmindependent Spirit Awards!!!.
The #SomeonetoWatch Award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. This award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant. The 2025 Film Independent #SpiritAwards finalists are: .Nicholas Colia, Sarah Friedland And Pham Thien
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A total joy speaking with @NicolasRapold about everything from air conditioning sounds to California modernism in FAMILIAR TOUCH.
.@NicolasRapold talks to Sarah Friedland, whose FAMILIAR TOUCH just picked up three awards at Venice
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Movement Exercises trilogy is screening Fri 12/9 at 7:30 @MayslesCinema followed by a conversation w/ @storebrandbrown ! Honored to present the theatrical premiere of this now-completed body of work at a cinema I love to attend. Come join us!
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Delighted to be leading this workshop on choreographic practices in hybrid film in conversation with so many artists I admire from all over the globe: Chris Emile, @useurjudgement, @CaraHagan87, Wen Hui, and Jaśmina Wójcik. Come join us @UnionDocs from 12/4 to 12/8!.
What role does movement play in your filmic practice? . ON THE CHOREOGRAPHIC: DANCE AND MOVEMENT is back! . Led by @motionxpictures w/ @useurjudgement @carahagan87 @no1arthouse + more! . Learn more and register today!
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“If nothing else, it’s a sign that the pacts between the artist and the institution have begun to fray. The possibility of refusal has reared its head.” As always, lucid and sharp analysis by the wonderful @devikagirgayi.
For @FilmComment, I wrote about the protests at Berlinale 2024, Strike Germany, NO OTHER LAND, the crisis of agency for film workers, and the limits of “political art”
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Honored and elated to premiere my new film Drills @TheNYFF, a festival that continues to teach me, year after year, about all that moving images mean to me. And Ohhhhhh to be in the company of these artists I so admire!!.
Announcing the new Currents section at the 58th #NYFF, which complements the Main Slate, tracing a more complete picture of contemporary cinema with an emphasis on new and innovative forms and voices. Explore the lineup:
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Movement Exercises is now streaming for free on Video Data Bank and its run was just extended through June 11! Thanks @FilmmakerMag for spreading the word!.
Trailer Watch: Sarah Friedland's "Movement Exercises" Trilogy, currently streaming for free via @VideoDataBank.
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Every year I attend @NDNF and sit in the dark rooms of @FilmLinc and @MoMAFilm and fall in love, once again, with the wild and expansive possibilities of this form. What utter joy it brings to me say that my short HOME EXERCISES will have its NY premiere at this year's festival.
The complete lineup for the 47th New Directors/New Films (March 28-April 8 at @FilmLinc & @MoMAFilm) has been announced! #NDNF
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Thank you @AthensFilmFest for honoring our film Drills! 🙏🏼 Screening again today at 7:30 for those in Ohio!.
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I’m on the Pina Bausch suspended railcar. I’m on the Wim Wenders hanging train compartment. I’m dancing on the inside on the Pina Bausch-Wim Wenders Schwebebahn!
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a small taste of Drills, a film about preparation, as we prepare for our premiere @TheNYFF in 10 days. Our TRAILER:
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Joan Micklin Silver’s films helped show me what a “Jewish” film could be beyond the Holocaust blockbuster, Woody Allen idolatry, and Zionist propaganda. What a huge gift to bestow to us in the diaspora🙏🏼
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"Friedland’s Drills opens the program by directing our attention to supposed safety practices. The images repeat over and over as Friedland picks up on patterns and dissimilarities alike. Drills is a hypnotic choice to start with. ".
Among the shorts playing the 2020 New York Film Festival, those in the "New York Stories" block embody the spirit of a city erroneously declared dead, offering studies in movement and character.
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TODAY IS THE DAY (2 pm ET!) to buy your tickets for @TheNYFF and so today is the day I'm pleased to present the poster the brilliant designer pa-i-ka ( made for our film:
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"In ‘Familiar Touch,’ filmmaker Sarah Friedland’s achingly intimate drama, we follow Ruth as she attempts to acclimate to her new life. Friedland, who also wrote the film‘s script, is not given over to histrionics or blaring displays of emotion, instead asking us to follow Ruth.
IndieWire was on the ground at the three major festivals and is here to report back on the 16 new films we loved the most:
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Tonight’s the last night to watch @storebrandbrown ’s incredible programming of @prismaticground ! How Im spending the next 4 hours. perhaps u should too. .
Have you been thinking about the ways we embody the anxieties of our deranged society, our hapless choreography of panic and fear? So has @motionxpictures— watch her film ‘Drills’ in ‘wave 2’ and find a link to the enlightening Q&A directly beneath the film description.
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My octogenarian and nonagenarian film students screened their final films this week and clapped and cheered at the end of every scene they liked. This is the energy I want to bring with me into NYFF!.
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In conjunction with my upcoming installation and residency @VSWnews, @VideoDataBank is streaming my Movement Exercises Trilogy for free on their VDB TV platform for the entire month of May! Stream it now at:
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My solo exhibition, Assembled Choreographies, is now live at Hartnett Gallery! Through 4/26. 👉 I wrote a text w/ Tess Takahashi on the stakes of reading crowds to accompany the digital premiere of CROWDS, my 3-channel installation.
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ringing in the start of a new year screening with filmmakers whose work I admire at @TheBrooklynRail ! Pleased to start 2021 alongside @akosuadoma, @jaygiampietro, Emily Drummer, and Sofia Bohdanowicz + Deragh Campbell! Register for free here:
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So excited to be a part of this inaugural lineup! Thanks @storebrandbrown for your festival creation! 🙏🏼.
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So excited to be a part of this @MoMAFilm series “navigating our fraught relationship with our only home,” imaginatively conjured by Brittany Shaw. Screening my film Drills on 5/20 and 5/25, and in convo w/ brilliant peers on the 20th!
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Throughout the festival tour and theatrical release of FAMILIAR TOUCH, I'm going to be hosting FREE filmmaking workshops for older adults and their care partners. Our first one is on 10/7 at @MVFilmFest. More info and sign-up link below!.
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Honored to be part of this line-up!.
The ICDOCS 2021 program is up now at: We're excited to share these films April 29-May 1!
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"At a time when films that seek to do anything other than entertain are pegged as irreparably pretentious, Friedland’s approach feels almost subversive. But for those willing to embrace its wavelength, Familiar Touch is nothing short of engrossing, that rarest of works that lives.
In my last Venice dispatch, I wrote about cops, the militarization of film festivals, the reduction of criticism to mere marketing—and a few fine films, too. More at @FilmmakerMag :
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LAST DAY to see "Assembled Choreographies" @ Hartnett Gallery!
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FAMILIAR TOUCH named one of @IndieWire 's 29 must-see films of the fall festival season!.
The advent of the fall festival season is always one of the biggest events of the year for cinephiles, but movie lovers from around the world have additional reasons to underline the dates on their calendars this year:
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Solidarity with the workers of @FilmLinc who are fighting for a living wage and fair contract! @flcunion #FLCUnion #faircontract.
1/ We are the workers of Film at Lincoln Center. We are programmers, coordinators, editors, marketers, ushers, fundraisers, theater staff, & more. We are proud to help bring the best in cinema to NYC & shape film culture worldwide.
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Honored to be on this list of screendance artists @Dance_Magazine!.
The field of screendance is chock-full of artists redefining what it means to make dance, and to create films. Now that the pandemic has put a spotlight on the genre, it's time to highlight some of the artists.
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What joy that our film, which in part looks at the distorted logic of embodying nuclear preparation through a shelled turtle, will precede Gunda, a film about a sow. 🐢🐷📽️❤️Can't wait to share a drive-in screen on 9/19 and join my local peers virtually on 9/18!
The schedule for the 58th #NYFF is here, featuring outdoor screenings at @QueensDriveIn & Brooklyn Drive-In, plus virtual screenings! Explore:
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“To witness a group of bodies seamlessly transform. is to witness the evolution and politics of gathering unfold through the visual language of dance.” Honored by @AngelineGragzin’s words in @ScreenSlate today. Open until 12/1 @LaMaMaETC!
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"In a moment when togetherness feels like a distant memory and bodily vulnerability permeates the everyday, Assembled Choreographies offers a gift of agency, a toolkit for probing the poetics and politics of our motions, from the mass-scale to the menial."
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Feeling so very excited to spend the next few months at the @BronxMuseum as an AIM Emerging Artist fellow with these talented artists.
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This summer @VideoDataBank invited my Movement Exercises trilogy to be a part of their collection. As the distributor for some of my favorite moving image artists (Yvonne Rainer! Harun Farocki!), I’m grateful and ecstatic to join their fold:
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Encore screening of NY Shorts on 10/16 at 8:45 pm!.
All #NYFF60 encore screenings have been announced & are now on sale, including WHITE NOISE, BONES AND ALL, ALCARRÀS, SHE SAID, THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER, CORSAGE, WOMEN TALKING, STONEWALLING & many more!. Act fast:
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Honored to share #HomeExercises in this night of films with @bureauworks @nitehawkcinema. Particularly tickled to screen in the same program w/ 2 extraordinarily talented friends! 💜@AngelineGragzin @xahaas 💜.
The Bureau presents a night of #shortfilm at @nitehawkcinema - a collection of never-before-seen and festival favorites from Sundance, AFI & more. The 100-minute block of films will be followed by a #filmmaker Q&A. Meet (support) your local film community.
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Tonight at 7! Looking forward to being in conversation with the other filmmakers in this program, moderated by Anna Khimasia. Today’s the last day to watch the full program.
Watch 50 mins of moving bodies resist social and political anxieties through connective gestures and choreographies of care then join us for a Closing Q&A Wednesday, June 2, 7:00 pm EST. PWYC Rental at
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What joy and pride and gratitude it brings me to say the following: my first solo gallery show and the NYC premiere of CROWDS will be @lamamagalleria from November 7 - December 8th. I'm honored and over the moon to be part of @LaMaMaETC's 58th season.
La MaMa's 58th Season is now on sale! More than 30 events are on sale, browse our season brochure online: This season, we celebrate Ellen Stewart’s centennial year. We hope you will join us this season to celebrate her profound vision & enduring legacy.
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Join us!.
"The choreographic" flourishes and intersects across a wide spectrum of practices. So what and how does a filmmaker choreograph? . Learn more in ON THE CHOREOGRAPHIC: Dance and Movement workshop led by @motionxpictures . Register by 11/30 for early rate!
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Movement Exercises, my trio of short films about the choreopolitics of exercises and drills, screens at 8 pm tomorrow night @BrattleTheatre in Cambridge as part of the RPM Festival curated by Wenhua Shi.
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these days, I keep returning to the images in Rinko Kawauchi's book "Ametsuchi"
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So very happy to say that my 3-channel dance film installation CROWDS will have its world premiere later this month @AAFilmFest! Grateful to genius graphic designer pa-i-ka for this poster! Full scoop👉
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✊Solidarity with @AFAworkers ! Cinematic Thrills Don’t Pay the Bills!.
"Reel Work is Real Work!"."No Avant-Garde Without Union Card!"
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Loved listening to @edogoesboating and @NicolasRapold dissect Familiar Touch together.
And here's my Venice conversation with @edogoesboating about PAVEMENTS PAVEMENTS, MISTRESS DISPELLER, and more
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Dearest Californians back home,.Tomorrow you have the chance to vote for a candidate who has built a multiracial, intergenerational movement fighting to guarantee health care, education, and housing as rights for all. Please oh please vote for Bernie tomorrow. love,.Sarah
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Monday at 8 pm, Hartnett Gallery will screen the 1st two short films in my trilogy about movement exercises, followed by a conversation with the gallery directors. Come join us! Register here:
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Starting tonight at 8 pm ET! Drills screens @mdffparkway for #MdFF2021 alongside the work of my 🔥🔥 short filmmaking peers making work in hybrid and experimental non-fiction forms! Check out the Unorthodocs block, more info 👇🏼.
SHORTS RELEASES: UNORTHODOCS and CHARGED SPACES.Two emotionally charged, experimental short film blocks that break down barriers and redefine the norm. Tickets at
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Meeting the inimitable @lynne_segal was the highlight of my London Film Festival! Her brilliant book "Out of Time" deeply shaped my film and how I think about the relationship btw aging + feminism. A must-read! Thank you Lynne for this beautiful description of our film.
Just saw Sarah Friedland's grt film "Familiar Touch". With its amazing star Kathleen Chalfant, this prize-winning debut film – made in just 19 days – is exquisite testimony to what remains & enables identificatn & ties despite another's extreme memory loss
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"Precisely the perception of the community through the tensions or encounters of the crowds is what is perceived in the conceptual proposal of this work by Friedland. but not from autonomy or immanence but in absolute relation to social learning, in its codes and conventions. ".
Mónica Delgado escribe sobre la exposición virtual Assembled Choreographies, de la cineasta y coreógrafa Sarah Friedland, bajo la curaduría de Almudena Escobar López, que va en la página de la Hartnett Galery. Gratuitamente hasta el 26 de abril.
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Delighted to be a part of this show curated by Dan Fethke on home, on place, on belonging. We will be raising money for @AlOtroLado_Org. Come join us Friday for opening!
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Excited to share "Habits of Leaking," my collaboration with @whkchun, published in #differences journal! http://t.co/QqcgBMtzuD.
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Giving this talk tomorrow on the choreographic practices I use to make hybrid films. Come join us at 2 pm ET and support the Festival of Recorded Movement, an artist-run fest supporting young dance filmmakers:
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Had the pleasure of talking to @storebrandbrown earlier this week about disrupting choreographies of preparation, incoherent cries for help, and rehearsal play, among other things. The films in wave 2, including Drills and our conversation, are live here!
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Movement Exercises now on view at the @BronxMuseum as part of their “Bronx Calling: 6th AIM Biennial”! Up now thru June 16.
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Tonight at 8 pm!.
Monday at 8 pm, Hartnett Gallery will screen the 1st two short films in my trilogy about movement exercises, followed by a conversation with the gallery directors. Come join us! Register here:
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Jessica’s coloring is so so beautiful! Brought 2 of my films/installations to life w/ an inimitable eye for hue and shadow and saved me from myself when I started trying to overcook the image. Hire her! 👇.
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7 yrs ago I had the pleasure of co-writing an essay with my fave college professor @whkchun. Now our essay "Habits of Leaking" has been republished for the 13th Gwangju Biennale's Reader, ed by @defneayas, @natashaginwala, & Jill Winder. Get ur copy here!👉
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Come join us at LFF on October 9 + 10! Thanks for the shout-out @GuyLodge 🙏🏻 tix on sale now.
@jessicakiang FAMILIAR TOUCH: another dementia drama, but an extraordinary, wrenching one, from the perspective of a woman who still recognises her life and its possibilities. A Venice highlight. My review:
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"There are several moments from this first week of shorts that I think will outlast the binge-viewing — a deserted classroom prior to a lockdown drill in Sarah Friedland’s Drills . but this kind of interaction is something else. ".
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Tomorrow at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, NC at 2 pm! Honored to be screening my short #HomeExercises in @AmerDanceFest #MoviesbyMovers Festival.
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Hey Chicagoans! I spent last week in the basement of @saic_news gallery making videos w/ Eiko Otake of her dance of installation. You can see them exhibited tomorrow and Saturday, guided by Eiko’s performative tours:
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Honored to have the support of this community of filmmakers. Thank you Flies Collective for believing in our vision for this film and giving us the capital to move it forward! 🙏🏼.
Flies Collective Announces Third Annual Film Grant Recipients.
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Dear @tenementmuseum , . #OpenYourLobby!. Sincerely,.One of your furloughed workers.
The @tenementmuseum has boarded up their windows, while other institutions open their doors and facilities to protestors. #OpenYourLobby #MuseumssayBLM #MuseumsAreNotNeutral
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#CROWDS is up and running in the #WassaicCommons ! Every Saturday from 12-5. A glimpse from our opening during the @wassaicproject Summer Festival.
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Thread of organizations and collectives to support/donate to:.
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Come join us @UnionDocs! Thrilled to lead this workshop with so many brilliant artists working btwn dance x film. Info below 👇🏼.
Register now for our ON THE CHOREOGRAPHIC: Dance and Movement workshop led by @motionxpictures! Develop methods for incorporating choreographic languages into your filmmaking practice with masterclasses by @xahaas @naitigamez @bgreenek @YaraTravieso + more
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We get to talk about my favorite things with these amazing artists!Join us and sign up today 👇🏼.
How can we think of gesture study as a practice that spans filmic forms? Register for ON THE CHOREOGRAPHIC: Dance and Movement workshop led by @motionxpictures with masterclasses by @xahaas @naitigamez @bgreenek @YaraTravieso +more
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