Deserts and Suburbs: Films by Deborah Stratman
Deborah Stratman is a filmmaker and artist based in Chicago, IL. She is currently working on Meet Adiljan (a documentary about Muslim Uighur tightrope walkers in western China) and Power/Exchange (a wind-powered public radio tower in Wendover, UT for the Center for Land Use Interpretation). She also teaches, most recently at University of Illinois, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Cal Arts. Her work has received awards from numerous festivals including Thaw 01 and CinemaTexas. In Order Not To Be Here has recently been added to the lineups at this year's Rotterdam International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival.
Featuring:
Untied, 2001, 16mm, 3:00
A short film about breaking free from abusive cycles. Made in response to a year of collapsing relationships and violent accidents that left me broken, dislocated and stuck in my apartment.
In Order Not To Be Here, 2003, 33:00
An uncompromising look at the ways privacy, safety, convenience and surveillance determine our environment. Shot entirely at night, the film confronts the hermetic nature of white-collar communities, dissecting the fear behind contemporary suburban design. An isolation-based fear (protect us from people not like us). A fear of irregularity (eat at McDonalds, you know what to expect). A fear of thought (turn on the television). A fear of self (don’t stop moving). By examining evacuated suburban and corporate landscapes, the film reveals a peculiarly 21st century hollowness… an emptiness born of our collective faith in safety and technology. This is a new genre of horror movie, attempting suburban locations as states of mind. Original electronic music by Kevin Drumm.
From Hetty to Nancy, 1997, 45:00
The stoic beauty of the Icelandic landscape forms a backdrop for a series of witty and caustic letters written at the turn of the century by Hetty as she treks with her companion Masie, four school girls and a school marm. The film juxtaposes Hetty's ironic cataloguing of the petty social interactions of her companions as they endure discomfort and boredom with historic accounts of catastrophes that reveal the Icelandic people subject to the awesome forces of nature.
