Not By Magic: Animated Films by Women from Serious Business Company
(Multiple artists, 1970–1981, film and digital, approx 70 min)

“Though film is a medium of illusion, it is not by magic that the films you see appear before an audience. The process by which they are seen is called distribution.” – Freude, “Notes on Distribution,” Camera Obscura Summer 1979

Founded by Bay Area filmmaker Freude in 1972, Serious Business Company was a woman-run independent film distributor specializing in art films, documentaries, feminist and educational shorts, and, perhaps most unusually for the time, experimental animation. In an era when the landscape for independent animated film in America was disparate, Serious Business astutely pioneered a national network of artists, exhibitors, universities, and libraries invested in deeply personal and unconventional work. Serious Business Company founder Freude was also a feminist committed to advancing women’s creative freedom in the 1970s, a spirit that marks all of the films in this showcase animated films by women from their robust catalog. From captivating abstract studies of movement and line to unabashedly lurid erotic fantasies, the films in this program—many presented in newly-preserved and archival prints – speak to the audacity, autonomy, and sense of possibility shared between the movement for women’s liberation and animated film.

Curated with assistance from Alexander Stewart and Lilli Carré of the Eyeworks Animation Series.

Films screened include:

BIRD (Sharon Hennessey, 1971, 16mm, 1 min, color, sound, print courtesy of the Pratt Institute Library)

BIRD LADY VS. THE GALLOPING GONADS (Josie [Ramstad] Winship, 1976, 1 min, B&W, 16mm, new preservation courtesy of the Pacific Film Archive and the NFPF)

I CHANGE, I AM THE SAME (Alice Anne Parker [Severson], 1969,1 min, B&W, Sound, 16mm, new preservation courtesy of the Pacific Film Archive and the NFPF)

TUB FILM (Mary Beams, 1972, 2 min, B&W, 16mm, print courtesy of the Pacific Film Archive)

DESIRE PIE (Lisa Crafts, 1976, 5 min, color, 16mm, preservation by Women’s Film Preservation Fund, print courtesy of Lisa Crafts)

THE DOODLERS (Kathy Rose, 1975, 5 min, color, 16mm, preserved by the Academy Film Archive)

CROCUS (Suzan Pitt, 1971, 7 min, color, 16mm, preserved by the Academy Film Archive)

MOON BREATH BEAT (Lisze Bechtold, 1980, 5 mins, color, 35mm, preserved by the Academy Film Archive)

QUASI AT THE QUACKADERO (Sally Cruikshank, 1976, 10 min, color, 35mm, print courtesy of the Sally Cruikshank and Jon Davison Collection at the Academy Film Archive)

OPENING/CLOSING (Kathleen Laughlin, 1972, 5 min, B&W, 16mm, new preservation courtesy of the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection at the Walker Art Center and the NFPF)

THE LIVES OF FIRECRACKERS (Sandy Moore, 1979, 12 min, color, 16mm-to-digital, new preservation courtesy of Anthology Film Archives)

INTERVIEW (Caroline Leaf and Veronika Soul, 1979, 13 min, color, 35mm, print courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)

Presented with support from the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and the Sexualities Project at Northwestern.

Official Website

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Tags: Alexander Stewart, Alice Anne Parker [Severson], Block Museum, Caroline Leaf, Evanston, Freude, Josie [Ramstad] Winship, Kathleen Laughlin, Kathy ROse, Lilli Carré, Lisa Crafts, Lisze Bechtold, Mary Beams, Northwestern University, Not By Magic: Animated Films by Women from Serious Business Company, Sally Cruikshank, Sandy Moore, Sharon Hennessey, Suzan Pitt, Veronika Soul