WRITERS MAKING FILM: ABIGAIL CHILD
Weds., Oct. 2, 4pm CFA Screenig Rm
Film Screening: Covert Action, Mayhem, Mercy, Ornamentals, Dark Dark

Abigail Child makes experimental films that exist just within the comprehensible wild. Distinguished by their frenetic montage of original and archival images and use of sound as a concrete rather than complementary element, her films enable the viewer a temporary home in the unknown—soliciting participation by the call of adventure and not by the dare of competition. The program’s titles Covert Action (1984), Mayhem (1987), and Mercy (1989) are from Is This What You Were Born For?, a series intended “to bracket ongoing film investigations in the context of the aggressions of the late Twentieth Century” and named after a Goya etching. The earlier work Ornamentals (1979) exemplifies the filmmaker’s commitment to “rhythm, the rhythm of body-nerve-mind” whereas Dark Dark (2001), (read a review of Child's B/Side in Bright Lights Journal. Child’s newest film, further investigates narrative construction and decomposition by interlacing four found story fragments: film noir, western, romance, and pursuit. Films are 16mm, feature the music of Ennio Morricone, Zeena Parkins and Christian Marclay, and run about 70 minutes total.

Abigail Child, is the chair of the Film Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.Child is also a poet, whose books include Motive for Mahem, Mob, Scatter Matrix, and From Solids.

"Writers Make Films" is curated by Caroline Koebel, Assistant Professor of Media Study. For further information on this program contact her at cgkoebel@buffalo.edu.