Select Documentary VIDEO Works by Donna Cameron.
PROGRAM 1: CONFIDENTIAL DO NOT DUPLICATE,
1991
WHO MURDERED PFC. BETH ANN CAMERON?
WE ARE STILL LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER.
click here to play "Confidential Do Not Duplicate" video
click here to download Teleplay of "Confidential Do Not Duplicate" pdf file
Confidential, Do Not Duplicate.
Directed
by Donna Cameron. 1991. 40 min. Color. Sound.
DISTRIBUTOR: THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART CIRCULATING FILM LIBRARY.
Contact: KittyCleary@moma.org
This film is a statement of grief at the terrible tragic loss of
the filmmaker’s youngest sister, Beth. Beth, a U.S. Navy private, was stationed on the U.S.S. Holland in Charleston
S.C. when she disappeared one Christmas. The circumstances surrounding her death were suspect of foul play; the Navy’s
investigation of her disappearance was less than adequate. Her gruesome murder remains an unsolved mystery.
“Powerful!” -Richard Herskowitz, Director,
Virginia Festival of American Film.
“A very moving work!” -Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film & Media,
The Museum of Modern Art, NY.
“The very personal topic of the death of a loved one is a difficult subject
for one to image...you succeeded, with grace.” -Charles Mingus III, artist, curator.
“Although it's hard to believe now,
this is one of tne of the first videos of the late 1980s'(then new) 8mm video format to so effectively use first person voice
over.” -Deborah Schaffer, filmmaker.
"Donna Cameron's story of the murder and
disappearance of her sister is deliberately filmed as a home video. In this film, Cameron, known for her poetic cinema works
on her own paper emulsion medium, returns to her photojournalist roots. She summons profound meditative moments in her use
of script and camera. She incorporates familiar elements of sight and sound (wind, water, traffic) and makes no attempt to
filter them. They are as raw as her voice, probing the strange tangled web of her sister's disappearance. It is a cold case which was never solved. By allowing natural
distortion of image and sound, she alludes to the many levels that a person is affected by such a tragedy." -William Sloan, Chief Emeritus, MoMA Circulating
Film Library.
PROGRAM 2: THUNDERBOLT:
DR. VIVIENNE THAUL WECHTER, 2001
"Homage to the Camp David Accord" |
|
20', Forged Steel, by Vivienne Thaul Wechter, Location: George Meany Center, Washington DC |
Thunderbolt! A Dialogue with Dr.
Vivienne Thaul Wechter.
Directed by Donna Cameron. 2001. 30 min. Color. Music by Peter Wetzler.
DISTRIBUTOR: THE MUSEUM OF
MODERN ART CIRCULATING FILM LIBRARY.
Contact:
KittyCleary@moma.org
This film
is a portait engaging a phenomenal talent, Vivienne Wechter. Wechter, 91 at the time of the filming, sheads her original
poetry and discusses her politics. She'd worked and partied with many of the illustrious persons of her age, including
Eleanor Roosevelt, Salvatore Dali, Helen Hayes, Robert Penn Warren, Alice Neel, Dorothy Gillespie. This film illuminates
her most endearing traits. She is sponaneously fiesty, offsetting, loving and dynamic. Wechter is a gifted painter, sculptor
and poet and intertwines her multi media thinking throughout the script.
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 1
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 2
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 3
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 4
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 5
click here to play Thunderbolt Part 6
"A very accomplished
work!" -George Stoney, legendary documentary filmmaker and Professor Emeritus, Department of Film & Television,
Maurice Kanbar Institute, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. ""Thunderolt..." is a fine, skillful work, and an enjoyable portrait of Vivienne."
-Larry Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art,
NY.
"Vivienne
Thaul Wechter is an original, intense, expressively lyrical abstract painter possessed of an imagination tha sights the unusual...
I am in full support of this project. Donna Cameron is a noted filmmaker, and it is important that this film is made."
-Henry Riseman, Director, Museum NECCA.
"Were Vivienne Wechter a literal or realistic artist the word people would be sorely tempted to put the substance
of her communication into words, to see her pictures in terms of words alone. But luckily she is not a realistic artist, she
is an extremely subtle abstractionist. As such, she is a most proper stimulant. Though it is well knowthat she has an extraordinary
gift for words, she is also able to broadcast to us from areas where words are of no avail. For she has learned the silent
language of the artists well. She is highly skilled in the complexities of color, light, line and form and understands the
power of their impact on the eye and mind. And what is more, her wordless messages come to us through the medium of
a vital and abundant talent." - Robert Beverly Hale, the late Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.