+ otherwise pictures llc

Film/Video

s o f t s h o e

1987  |  film  |  color  |  sound  |  21 min
Holly Fisher

… elegant and unpredictable fracture of space and makes such uncanny rhythm! — film to be felt in the flesh & in the bones — in the spine and on the bottoms of the feet 

– Pat O’Neil, filmmaker

awards/events

Ann Arbor Film Festival – Merit Award, 1987
Sinking Creek Film Celebration – Award Winner, 1987

synopsis

Optical printing links East with West within a mosaic of looped, layered and shifting images filmed originally on Super 8 while on a (train/car/thumb) trip across Europe in 1978. Swinging cow udders, woman sweeping, farm woman walking, nuns chanting, Nude Descending, voices in a bread shop, Dachau and other artworks from Documenta 7, riding the escalator of the Centre Pompidou, etc. are layered in overlapping, shifting, and repetitive frame-clusters pulled from Super 8 footage filmed on a trip that began in Bucharest and ended in Paris. Disparate elements are combined and manipulated to construct a lyrical work about walking, history, and memory.

notes

Made from Super 8 original shot with consumer camera and re-worked in multiple layers via JK Optical Printer

s o f t s h o e is the source of my current and on-going digital print project, to produce a gallery exhibition combining stills of differing scale with film loops built from excerpts lifted from the film.

press/reflections

… s o f t s h o e, which does such an elegant and unpredictable fracture of space and makes such uncanny rhythm! This is good–film to be felt in the flesh & in the bones–in the spine and on the bottoms of the feet!

–Pat O’Neil 7/15

screenings

Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, GA (1987)
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI (1987)
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Oberhausen, Germany (1987)
Sinking Creek Film Celebration, Nashville, TN (1987)
Barnard College Women’s Film Festival, New York, NY (1987)

grants

NYSCA Film Production Grant
CAPS Grant