Events
RE:VOIR ONLINE SCREENING OF CHICKEN STEW
RE:VOIR presents a special screening of Holly Fisher’s short film Chicken Stew, as part of a program of other experimental shorts screening on July 22nd via their app. Download via or App Store or Google Play.
Full program:
Trama, CHRISTIAN LEBRAT
Autoportrait au Dispositif, CHRISTIAN LEBRAT
Echoes of Silence, PETER EMMANUEL GOLDMAN
Chicken Stew, HOLLY FISHER
POV Presents: A Special Encore Presentation of WHO KILLED VINCENT CHIN?
POV, now in its 35th year as America’s longest-running independent documentary series, presents a Special Encore Presentation of the gripping 1987 Academy Award® nominated film, Who Killed Vincent Chin?, by filmmakers Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña, on Monday, June 20, 2022 at 10pm ET. Who Killed Vincent Chin? was recently restored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and also selected for the National Film Registry.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the racially motivated murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, murdered by two white men, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, in Detroit, Michigan on June 19, 1982. The documentary, which originally aired on POV in March 1987, details the incident from initial eye-witness accounts, the ensuing murder trials to the lenient sentences the assailants received, and the repercussions for the families and community involved. Who Killed Vincent Chin? also chronicles how the case brought the disparate Asian American communities of Detroit together for the first time, and how they transformed themselves from a grassroots advocacy group into a national movement.
Their efforts helped bring public attention to the anti-Asian hate that led to Vincent Chin’s murder and encouraged Asian American groups across the country to fight for equality and justice. The U.S. Department of Justice brought federal civil rights charges against the killers, who were ultimately acquitted on appeal, on grounds of pre-trial publicity and errors made with witnesses.
“I was vaguely aware of the killing of Vincent Chin in 1982. The next year, when I had the opportunity to meet Lily Chin, Vincent’s mother in Detroit, Michigan, I knew this was a story that would make an impact. The project started as a short film to help the American Citizens for Justice (ACJ) raise the legal fee but with the support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the film was expanded. It was a privilege to have taken part in the telling of this story nearly forty years ago and still see its relevance and importance today.” said Who Killed Vincent Chin? filmmaker Christine Choy.
“We knew who killed Vincent Chin, but the real question was why? Was it because of his race? For me it was a Rashomon-like enigma, trying to untangle the conflicting perspectives of the people who lived through the case. It also revealed the fractures in America itself, and ultimately, how people bridged those divides to fight for justice” Who Killed Vincent Chin? filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña added.
Who Killed Vincent Chin? represents a critical turning point for Asian Americans with chilling relevance today. Anti-Asian sentiments that were further stoked by the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to ongoing xenophobia, particularly against Chinese Americans, though they have affected the broader AAPI community. From March 19, 2020, to December 31, 2021, over ten thousand hate crime incidents were reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit coalition tracking incidents of hate and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Breaking news headlines about the 2021 Atlanta and Indianapolis shootings, and the recent murders in New York City of Christina Yuna Lee and Michelle Go as well, show that these hate crimes are disproportionately targeted at the elderly and Asian American women.
“It’s such an honor to present Who Killed Vincent Chin? again at this moment and especially on the heels of executive producer Juanita Anderson joining our board of directors. Who Killed Vincent Chin ? is a watershed moment in filmmaking craft as well as in building and unifying an intersectional political project for the Asian American community,” said executive director of American Documentary and executive producer of POV Erika Dilday, “Now more than ever we can feel its resonance, and I’m so happy to make this essential work newly accessible to millions of viewers on PBS.”
GLASS SHADOWS Screening in Paris
Holly Fisher’s GLASS SHADOWS will play as part of Re:Voir’s “FUTUR ANTÉRIEUR • SELF PORTRAIT” screening on MONDAY February 28 at 8 P.M. at the CINEMA L’ARCHIPEL, 17 bvd de Strasbourg, Paris 10. The Re:Voir Online mobile VOD app will launch on Android this month: this screening is dedicated to the filmmakers present on the app. Click here for more info.
“Who Killed Vincent Chin?” inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress
Librarian of Congress announced the annual selection of 25 influential motion pictures to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Selected for their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage, the newest selections include epic trilogies, extraordinary animated features, comedy and music, and films that took on racially-motivated violence against people of color decades ago.
“Who Killed Vincent Chin?”, directed by Christine Choy and edited by Holly Fisher, was one of the 25 films selected for the honor.
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will host a television special Friday, Dec. 17, starting at 8 p.m.(ET) to screen a selection of films from the 2021 National Film Registry.
You can follow the conversation about the 2021 National Film Registry on Twitter and Instagram at @librarycongress and #NatFilmRegistry.
OUT OF THE BLUE + A QUESTION OF SUNLIGHT AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
Anthology continues its recent focus on the work of Holly Fisher with a weekend devoted to two films that contend with the legacy of the September 11 attacks: A QUESTION OF SUNLIGHT (2019) and her most recent feature film, OUT OF THE BLUE (2021), which Anthology presented virtually earlier this summer and which now makes its world theatrical premiere. Presented on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the program also highlights the unique and ongoing interconnections between Holly Fisher’s films and the music of composer Lois V Vierk. The soundtracks of both A QUESTION OF SUNLIGHT and OUT OF THE BLUE feature compositions by Vierk, with the latter incorporating the complete 20-minute Words Fail Me, a piece inspired by Vierk’s experience as an eyewitness to the fall of the twin towers.
OUT OF THE BLUE
September 10 at 6:45 PM
September 11 at 4:00 PM
September 12 at 8:00 PM
A QUESTION OF SUNLIGHT
September 10 at 9:00 PM
September 11 at 6:15 PM
3X HOLLY FISHER AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES: OUT OF THE BLUE + DEAFENING SILENCE + SOFTSHOE FOR BARTOK
In November 2019, Anthology presented the most comprehensive retrospective to date devoted to the work of Holly Fisher, whose films range freely between the realms of documentary, essay film, personal meditations, and intricate juxtapositions of imagery and text. As a kind of sequel to the earlier retrospective, they’ll be focusing on Fisher’s work again this summer and fall, beginning with an online presentation pairing two brand-new films, OUT OF THE BLUE and SOFTSHOE FOR BARTOK, with an earlier film that has gained new relevance in the context of current events, DEAFENING SILENCE.
OUT OF THE BLUE is a typically thought-provoking and contemplative work constructed from seemingly disparate elements: imagery recorded from the window of a plane during her trans-Atlantic travels, diary-like footage, found imagery and sound, and onscreen texts. The result is a highly personal, open-ended meditation on the passage of time, historical trauma, and liminal physical and emotional spaces that embodies Fisher’s radically multilayered approach: she juxtaposes multiple layers of visual and aural materials not only to create a rich visual experience, but to bring into play a dizzying and cross-pollinating array of ideas. The soundtrack features composer Lois V Vierk’s long-form piece, “Words Fail Me,” a work inspired by Vierk’s experience as an eyewitness to the fall of the World Trade Center, twenty years ago.
DEAFENING SILENCE partakes of some of the same techniques to explore – firsthand as well as through the lens of the media – the sociopolitical situation in Myanmar/Burma in the early 2000s, and the oppression of the ethnic Karen population. The film features appearances from some of the same figures – such as Maung Zarni – who have been prominent commentators and witnesses during the more recent upheaval in Burma.
As a special bonus they’ll also present the brand-new short film, SOFTSHOE FOR BARTOK, a digital reimagining of Fisher’s 16mm film “s o f t s h o e” (1987).
In September they plan to host Holly Fisher in person for theatrical screenings of OUT OF THE BLUE, as well as her 2019 film, A QUESTION OF SUNLIGHT, which was made in response to the events of 9/11. Both films feature music by Lois V Vierk. Stay tuned for more info!
OUT OF THE BLUE, DEAFENING SILENCE and SOFTSHOE FOR BARTOK will be available to stream for free on Anthology’s Vimeo page from June 16-29 at https://vimeo.com/showcase/hollyfisher.
Holly Fisher
OUT OF THE BLUE
2021, 90 min, digital. Music by Lois V Vierk.
Holly Fisher
DEAFENING SILENCE
2012, 120 min, digital
Holly Fisher
SOFTSHOE FOR BARTOK
1987/2021, 22 min, 16mm-to-digital
Upcoming Anthology Film Archives Screenings
Microscope Gallery Presents Deafening Silence with Q&A
Microscope is pleased to present, in consideration of this week’s events in Myanmar (formerly Burma), a special online screening of “Deafening Silence,” a 2012 documentary film by New York-based artist Holly Fisher. The event is taking place in collaboration with Re:Voir / The Film Gallery in Paris, France.
In addition to a live chat with Fisher that will follow the initial screening on Monday February 8th at 9:15 pm ET, there will also be a live conversation via Zoom with the filmmaker, several individuals interviewed in the documentary, and Pip Chodorov (Re:Voir/The Film Gallery) on a date still TBA. The documentary by Fisher will remain on view until Saturday February 13, 10:30pm PT.
Deafening Silence presents the reality of daily life of citizens living under brutal, military-led dictator rule in Myanmar through original footage of and interviews during two separate trips by Fisher to the country in 1996/97 and 2003. The first was a legal visit in which Fisher posed as a “fake tour guide,” while for the second she entered the country on foot and connected with two people from her earlier trip as well as with ethnic minority guerillas in order to film in a free-fire war zone.
Glimpses of bucolic life in rural parts of the country are intercut with archival colonial footage or segments from YouTube videos presenting the actual state of political terror, persecution at all levels of everyday life, and ethnic genocide. Scenes of rejection of the results of democratic elections and the military overtaking power, as well as the liberation from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi on November 13 2010 are especially poignant in the context of last week’s dark events including the new military coup and the jailing of Suu Kyi and other democratically elected officials.
TO WATCH:
A “Watch Now” link will appear on this page on Monday February 8th at 6:30pm ET. Passes for viewing give full access to the video program and live chat.
General admission $8 (Valid through Saturday February 13, 10:30pm PT)
Member admission $6 (Valid through Saturday February 13, 10:30pm PT)
Re:Voir Video Promotion: 45% Off Select Films Including Bullets for Breakfast!
Re:Voir Video will be hosting a special promotion featuring 45% off select DVDs linked to upcoming VOD releases. In celebration of the June 6th and June 13th VOD releases from Holly Fisher, her 1992 feature film Bullets for Breakfast will be available at 45% off starting June 6th through the 20th. Don’t miss out on this offer and make sure to keep an eye out for the newest VOD releases coming soon!
New VOD Releases Coming Soon From Re:Voir Video
June 06, 2020
CLICK HERE for Program #1 (releasing June 6th on Vimeo on Demand):
WATERMEN
1968 | 16mm | color | sound | 63 min
filmmakers: Holly Fisher & Romas V. Slezas
Technical Information: Filmed between 1966 – 68, Eastern Shore MD.
music: Performed by Captain Daniels and his wife, various watermen skippers and African American crew
with: Captain “Daddy Art” Daniels, members of Daniel extended family, crew of “City of Crisfield” 1968, last sailmaker, Wenona on Deals Island, Maryland. Other watermen and relatives from Wenona and Tilghman Island, Maryland.
In 1966 Holly Fisher and co-director Romas V. Slezas filmed the annual Skipjack Race off the coast of Annapolis, Maryland, focused especially on local folk hero skipjack Captain “Daddy Art” Daniels, who won that day. Over the next three years they filmed Daniels, his family, his Afro-American crew, and his colleagues catching oysters, at home, singing & preaching in church, high school graduation, last sail maker (Wenona, MD), three generations featured (1967) on Maryland TV station, i.e. the passing of a way of life on the Chesapeake Bay. The film tells a simple story of the watermen working the last sailing fleet of workboats in North America and it is perhaps also the story of Manifest Destiny playing out in an isolated pocket of American culture.
Slezas and Fisher worked as a cinema vérité team for over three years 1966-1968, returning when they had funding to continue. The film has no outside narrator, and is carried by stories lived and/or told by the characters themselves. In the fall of 2009, Fisher returned to Wenona to film Captain Daniels, then in his late 80s, who would skipper the “City of Crisfield” in one more Skipjack race. By now Daniels had become a local legend, and was featured in multiple T.V. interviews plus the local Deals Island parade, filmed waving from the back seat of a red convertible.
At that time two of Daniels’ sons were still catching oysters in the traditional way; his oldest son was also a local country western singer who broadcast especially to other fishermen from his own Skipjack. His youngest son “Bobby” had become a well-respected and fiery preacher. He oystered well into his nineties.
Captain Arthur “Daddy Art” Daniels, waterman, Minister, and great-great-grandfather, died at home in Wenona, MD, June 2017 at age 95.
Goldfish Variations is a playful work comprised of sketches made with a minute of iPhone footage re-envisioned within 18 video layers, shaped with, against, around, and inspired by Vierk’s densely textured, continually shifting, tightening, building, deeply riveting forward motion sound flow of her piece River Beneath the River.
t h i n k t a n k is a tapestry in motion, in which 24 layers of iPhone video of swimming goldfish are laced with ambiguous floating text – transforming over time from a playful meditation on language into a haunting look into the ethos of the U.S. government surveillance dragnet. Music is by avant-garde composer Lois V Vierk.
Buffalo Diaries: An assemblage of sequences of water buffalo and related imagery (palms, bamboos, archives) culled from my work on Burma–filmed between 1996 and 2003. I made this especially for my friend and advisor of many years, Lance Bird, who has a deep love and appreciation of animals, not least, the water buffalo.
CLICK HERE for Program #2 (releasing June 13th on Vimeo on Demand):
Included with her experimental documentary Deafening Silence (2012) is a series of short film/video works, created on a multi-layered timeline between 2012 – 2018, via the recycling of her 8mm & 16mm film, iPhone, and other primary sources as her point of departure. Perception is the common ground within this otherwise radical departure from her long-form essay films Everywhere at Once, Deafening Silence and A Question of Sunlight. Each new work here loops back to the cyclic and layered optical printing experiments with structure, including her multiple projection project Ghost Dance originally performed by Fisher in the early 80s.
Deafening Silence is a fusion of beauty and terror, observation and anger, roving visuals and intimate stories that are funny, contemplative, or horrific – a subjective, layered depiction of Burma under brutal military dictatorship. My first trip was legal, shooting video as a fake tour guide doing research. The next was on foot, under-cover with ethnic Karen guerrillas, to film internal exiles surviving in a free-fire jungle war zone. Colonial archival imagery and clips from YouTube are woven within this tapestry of fragments, often in ironic counterpoint, and always to pierce the chokehold of censorship. This is a living history of a country arrested in time, a hybrid documentary focusing on ethnic genocide but with constant poetic resonance and a rich multiplicity of references to history and popular culture.” – Hank Heifetz and Holly Fisher
… this doc deserves to go places. Big places. Using footage from two trips she took to Burma (one as a legitimate tourist and one covertly and illegally), news reports, YouTube videos, interviews, and more, she crafts a nonfiction tone poem that feels more like Apocalypse Now than any doc I can think of. …There are frequent moments of joy and grace, both small and large, captured in Deafening Silence. It’s those small heartbeats, the candle in the wind of love against hate, right against might, that holds the truly unshakeable hope for the future. – Dan Schindel, film critic, blogger
Ghostdance for a New Century (1980-2015): Digital update of an old two-channel film. Here, the screen is a dish on which elements concentrate in the center. Its inset frames and their glimmering sprocket holes recall panes of stained glass, inlaid atop each other in an impossible cathedral, producing stirring combinations of consecrated light. Composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim performs her original score, LENS – Maxwell Paparella, Screen Slate
b e d e v i l e d: Dragon bones and snakes embracing; skeletons in underwear, flying shoes and bug-eyed aliens are among the characters that comprise the annual NYC Halloween Parade — filmed and transformed into a subjective extra-terrestrial dreamscape. Fragmented, cyclic, and in continual flux, b e d e v i l e d is a collage in motion, grounded within a visible construct of open and ever-shifting frames. – Holly Fisher
bartok on 57th street (s o f t s h o e di-stilled): A re-imagining of my S.8-sourced 16mm film s o f t s h o e (1987) – expanded here from the optically printed original work to a weave of picture made possible via an (avid) video multi-track timeline. This work is a self-contained film/video hybrid variation, for projection but especially for continuous looping for wall exhibition with my digital print project pulled from the same film. The print project “Softshoe Di-stilled” is one of deconstruction, while “bartok” is a filmmaker’s sketchbook unbound, in search of new ground. Odds are good I will continue to expand this work… – Holly Fisher
Ghost Dance (1980) takes the viewer on a spiraling descent into Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly, from the rim at the top to the Navajo ruins on the mud-caked canyon floor. A systemic looping technique via JK Optical Printer creates images that are stretched, recycled, and interwoven, altering one’s perceptions of time and space in relation to the immediate “present.” The film is made from a single roll of regular 8mm film, filmed with a camera found in the back seat of a taxi. After initial exposure (shot in single and “spurt frame” clusters while descending the canyon) the film was accidentally “cooked” in the glove box of the car, giving it a deep reddish tone not unlike the Canyon de Chelly at twilight. I instructed the lab not to slit the film (as was the norm with 8mm) in order to gain access to multiple frames within the 16mm gate of my JK Optical Printer for re-filming. Roughly two years later, I re-filmed the entire 3 minute strand–unslit, using a 16mm gate in my JK printer, and keeping a pretty strict pattern of looped and repetitive sequencing. – Holly Fisher
The Films of Holly Fisher at The Anthology Film Archives
November 07, 2019 - November 12
This long-overdue retrospective surveys the career of Holly Fisher, a filmmaker who since the late 1960s has been as prolific, as free in her exploration of different cinematic forms, and as adventurous in her embrace of new technological tools and ways of seeing as any of her peers, but without enjoying the degree of attention and acclaim that her work richly deserves.
Fisher’s filmmaking career began in the documentary realm, in partnership with Romas V. Slezas, with whom she made vérité-inflected short- and feature-length non-fiction films from 1965-71, and she has continued to work as an editor on documentaries by Camille Billops, Christine Choy, and Camilla Motta, among others. But her own films depart radically from the linear approach of these collaborative projects, most often adopting a densely multi-layered visual style and allusive editing framework that combine to create highly personal and intuitive reflections on the warp and weave of memory and time.
Her body of work has grown to encompass films of vastly different scales and visual textures – including bravura experiments in optical printing (GHOST DANCE and HERE TODAY GONE TOMORROW), hypnotic orchestrations of photography and sound (EVERYWHERE AT ONCE, featuring images of and narration by Jeanne Moreau), witty collisions of imagery and text (THIS IS MONTAGE and ‘t h i n k t a n k’), and urgent, media-refracted meditations on social-political transformations (DEAFENING SILENCE, one of several films culled from footage shot in Myanmar). Unifying all these works is Fisher’s searching, deeply engaged sensibility, her commitment to and knack for finding visual and rhythmic structures that serve to break through to new realms of thought, feeling, and perception.
This extensive retrospective includes a carefully chosen selection of her own moving-image works – short- and feature-length, analogue and digital, photographed and found-footage-based – as well as films representing her documentary roots and her work as an editor. Fisher will be here in person throughout the retrospective!
“Juxtaposition and contrast is my modus operandi, and editing is where my real creative work happens. […] It is rare that I set out to make a film ‘about’ this or that. Rather, I am driven to explore some formal or psychological question that intrigues me – like how to sustain a flow of ideas within the broken continuity of non-linear structuring. Or, how to analyze time and motion by exploring the space between one frame and another. Trauma, memory, and perception are issues that come up repeatedly in my work…. Whether the issue is diabolic human rights abuse, or filmic play with light, shadow, and my own nude body, I will use every sort of maneuver to open space for the viewer to think and imagine – and will subvert every convention of narrative that obscures the possibility of making personal meaning. Whatever is my sleight of hand, my intent is to lead the viewer toward one’s own private insight, metaphor, or other deepest reverie.” –Holly Fisher
This retrospective has been made possible thanks to support from Barton Byg, Penny Duncklee, Vincent Grenier, Susan & Arthur Holcombe, and Alan Rinzler. Very special thanks to Holly Fisher and Ha-Yang Kim.
All screenings will be held November 7 – 12, 2019 at Anthology Film Archives, located at 32 Second Ave (@ 2nd St) in NYC.
For more info, visit Anthology’s website: www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/51690
Gallery Exhibition, The Film Gallery, Paris
May 07, 2019
Gallery Exhibition, Film Prints & Installation loops
May 7 – June 28, 2019, The Film Gallery, 43 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, Paris
Opening reception May 7
Screening, “Films of Holly Fisher,” l’Archipel Cinema, Paris
Screening, “Films of Holly Fisher,” l’Archipel Cinema, Paris
Tuesday, May 7, 2019, sponsored by Re-Voir
New DVD release, Bullets for Breakfast & early films of Holly Fisher
March 29, 2019
New DVD, Bullets for Breakfast & early films of Holly Fisher
Produced by Re-Voir, Paris – released March 2019
Featured in Princeton Survey of Influential Film Editors
March 01, 2019
Featured in “Edited By: A survey of one hundred and thirty-nine editors who invented, developed, fine-tuned and revolutionized the art of film editing” by Su Friedrich, Princeton University
ENDE TYMES 8: Novo Apocalypso
November 12, 2017
10-12 November 2017
Ghostdance for a New Century, film by Holly Fisher
with live music performance with composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim
Sunday, November 12, 9:30 pm
Outpost Artists Resources
1665 Norman St, Ridgewood NY
Weekend Pass – $35 Buy tickets
Sunday Nov 12 – $15 Festival Website
Bullets for Breakfast to be released in HD on DVD by Re:Voir
To be released by Pip Chodorov, Re-Voir, Paris, France
“Bullets for Breakfast” is in process of conversion to HD via Jack Rizzo of Metropolitan Post — and new HD version will be produced & released in a new DVD etc edition (including an early film or two) by Pip Chodorov via Re:Voir, Paris, France.
2 x 2 selected by the Ann Arbor Film Festival for their “Off The Screen!” series.
55th Ann Arbor Film Festival, March 21-26, 2017
Holly’s most recent film 2 x 2 has been selected by the Ann Arbor Film Festival to be exhibited in their Off The Screen! series as a ‘store-front’ installation piece, to run continuously several weeks before and throughout the AAFF55 in downtown Ann Arbor. Details coming soon!
Traveling to Berlin for the 2017 Berlinale
Berlin Film Festival 2017 Berlinale, February 9-19, 2017
Fisher will travel to Berlin in order to attend the 2017 Berlinale as guest of her long-time friend and colleague Dr. Christine Noll Brinkmann.
moving back to NYC
Opening
Holly has been living and working in Easthampton, MA and Tribeca, NYC since spring 2009. She has recently moved back full-time to NYC, and will split her time between her “tiny house” in Lower Manhattan and her new studio at MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ. Zach Hart will assist her at MANA to resume her digital print projects which variously link to her past and ongoing film/video work.
2 x 2 at The Filmette Film Festival
sponsored by Harvestworks
November 19, 2016
2 x 2, by filmmaker Holly Fisher – two films with two contemporary avant-garde composers Lois V Vierk and composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim, premiered November 19, 2016 at The Filmette Film Festival sponsored by HARVESTWORKS, NYC, NY.
