Co-Presentation with Filmhuis Cavia

Images Festival is excited to co-present Excellent Suits at the Filmhuis Cavia, in partnership with Video Out.

Monday, January 20, 8pm 

Van Hallstraat 52-I 

1051HH Amsterdam 

Netherlands

The title of this program is pulled from Lorna Boschman’s interview with video artist Maureen Bradley in her documentary Boy Girl (1999). Boschmann’s documentary offers three perspectives on androgynous life. Bradley speaks about her fluctuating fashion sense in her youth which involved performing in a band as a mod femme one day, the next excavating thrift stores for “get these really excellent suits.” In selecting the works in this program, Ling considered the euphemism for a naked body, a birthday suit, and works that present ways that such a suit can be touched, refuted, and tailored — to be in one’s most excellent suit.

Featuring works by Lorna Boschman, Wrik Mead, Daniel Cardinal McCartney, Eva Stefani, and Carl Elsaesser. Excellent Suits is programmed by our Artistic Director Steffanie Ling who was invited to curate a program inspired by one of the works in Cavia’s archive of VHS tapes. Ling selected Lorna Boschman’s documentary Boy Girl (1999) which was included in Tape 2 of “New Queer Acquisitions 1999” sent to Cavia from Video Out. From 2017-2018, Ling worked as an Events + Exhibitions Curator at VIVO Media Arts Centre (Vancouver), which founded Video Out in 1980.

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Boy Girl 

Lorna Boschman | 1999 | Canada | 14’ | Digital 

Three people discussing their gender identity and ambiguity: one who alternated gender costumes while performing in a rock band, another who is often publicly challenged because she looks masculine and a third who modeled based on her androgynous appearance. Featuring interviews with Maureen Bradley, Sheila Gilhooly and Andrea Fatona.

Gravity 

Wrik Mead | 1987 | Canada | 3’ | 16mm 

When you wake up and you have so much to do that you just want to go back to bed. The illusion created by shooting the entire film in reverse emphasizes the entire cycle of life. —CFMDC

Cramps 

Daniel Cardinal McCartney | 2019 | Canada | 4’ | DCP 

Featuring the artists naked body to explore themes of infertility due to a medicalized transition, the cisgender gaze and delivers an attempt of self-soothing of his gender dysphoria. The third installment “Mothering Myself”—a series of nine performances for video.

The Kiss 

Eva Stefani | 2007 | Greece | 4’ | DCP 

Two women kiss to sounds of a song by Poly Panou.

Acropolis 

Eva Stefani | 2001 | Greece | 26’ | DCP 

The film explores the significance of Greece’s national symbol, the Acropolis, in the creation of national identity and collective memory. Likening the “sacred rock” to the female body, the film attempts to make a comment on the timeless exploitation of the monument, while exploring the relation of History to pornography. —Thessaloniki Film Festival

Itinerary of Surfaces 

Carl Elsaesser | 2020 | USA | 8’ | DCP 

What I am//What you are//salt and sweat on my tongue. A love letter of domestic imagination. The habits and musings of the ordinary in a remote location. A year of rain and other fluids. Contentment is a difficult emotion. —Carl Elsaesser

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Image: Carl Elsaesser, Itinerary of Surfaces, 2020.