Su Friedrich: Today
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
Su Friedrich: Today
Sunday January 11, 2025, 7:30 pm
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057
Los Angeles premieres!
In person: Su Friedrich
Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members
https://link.dice.fm/n5adae4341d3
Filmforum welcomes back Su Friedrich after multiple years for the Los Angeles premieres of two of her digital video works!
“With almost a million personal videos now posted on YouTube.com, we may guess that people today find self-recording to be as natural as tooth brushing, though slightly more public. If so, then Su Friedrich once again stands out from the crowd…Despite her quarter-century’s experience in making intensely self-revelatory, formally complex films, nothing less than a professional crisis drove her to start a video diary [and] she has mulled over her pained monologues until they have taken on a musical form…Sometimes bracingly expressive, sometimes serenely beautiful, the outdoor images interrupt and tease, echo and comment upon Ms. Friedrich’s bedroom outpourings, putting them into their artistic place.” —Stuart Klawans, The New York Times
Su Friedrich has directed twenty-seven films and videos since 1978, which have been featured in thirty-one retrospectives at major museums and film festivals including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema and the National Film Theater in London and they have been widely screened and extensively written. Her work is the subject of two recent books: Su Friedrich: Interviews, edited by Sonia Misra and Jed Samer, Univ. of Mississippi Press (2022) and Su Friedrich by Barbara Mennel, Univ of Illinois Press (2023.) The films have won numerous awards, including Grand Prix at the Melbourne Film Festival, Outstanding Documentary Award at Outfest and Best Narrative Film Award at the Athens International Film Festival. Fifteen of her films are available on DVD and VOD streaming from Outcast Films and her two most recent films are at Icarus Films.
Thank you to the Academy Museum, where there will be a different in-person screening with Su Friedrich at the Academy Museum on Saturday January 10 at 3 pm, featuring “Damned if you Don’t” and “Sink or Swim.”:
Thank you to K.J. Relth-Miller, Bob Hunter, Icarus Films
Seeing Red
Seeing Red
2005, digital video, color, sound, 27 min. Los Angeles premiere!
Directed, written, shot and edited by Su Friedrich
In Seeing Red, three elements run parallel, overlap, diverge, lock horns and in various other ways give voice to the notion that a color, a melody, or a person has multiple characteristics that cannot be grasped by, or understood within, a simple framework.
One element is purely visual.
One is very verbal and minimally visual.
One is purely musical.
So is red the color of a fire truck or a ruby, of rust or a rose, of blood or a brick?
How fixed is a melody if it can be twisted, stretched, and shaken to the point where we no longer recognize its original form?
And when we “see red,” what color is that exactly? What aspect of passion are we feeling? Are we looking outward and seeing injustice and cupidity, or looking inward at our own limitations and failings?
Today
Today
2022, digital video, color and b&w, 57 min. Los Angeles premiere!
Directed, written, shot, edited and sound edited by Su Friedrich
Co-writer and editing consultant: Cathy Quinlan
Appearances/performances by Peggy Ahwesh, Johnnie Louise Cox, Jezebel Express, Pamela Frank, Lore Friedrich, Paul Friedrich, Michael Gundlach, Tenasia Hatch, Glady Knight, Cathy Quinlan, Tre Robinson, Georgene Simmons, Mavis Staples, Larry Stewart, Christian Tetzlaff, Diane Torr, Giancarlo Vulcano and Denise E. Williams
Today is about what happens when you think that “living in the moment” will give you access to seeing the wonders of the world, and then you discover that it simply means you’ll see exactly what’s in front of you on any given day, whether that’s uplifting—or devastating.
“A country vacation. A city block party. The loss of a loved one. The spread of a pandemic. The brightness of flowers, real and fake. Choice morsels of documentary footage are augmented with Friedrich’s wry observations and witty on-screen text in this engrossing portrait of daily life.” — American Fringe Festival
“Celebrated for pioneering contributions to queer cinema, Friedrich adopts an innovative approach in Today. Endeavoring to “live in the moment” through her camera, the filmmaker discloses the inspiring and sorrowful facets of the world surrounding her, merging documentary footage with trademark humor and commentary, resulting in a captivating and informal depiction of everyday life.” — Chris Jones, Overly Honest Movie Reviews