Vever (for Barbara)

Synopsis

This film grew out of abandoned film projects by Maya Deren and Barbara Hammer. Shot at the furthest point of a motorcycle trip that Hammer took to Guatemala in 1975, and laced through with Deren’s reflections on failure, encounter and initiation in 1950s Haiti, the result is a cross-generational binding of three filmmakers seeking alternative possibilities to power structures they are inherently part of themselves.

Bio/Filmo

Deborah Stratman (Washington, DC, 1967) is a filmmaker and teacher at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois. Her work was first screened in Spain in 2002, when In Order Not to Be Here competed in the Official Section at l’Alternativa, and she has been a festival regular ever since: in 2009 she won the Best Documentary Feature Award for O’er the Land, in 2016 she was awarded a Special Mention for her feature The Illinois Parables and in 2018 Optimism won the Best Short Film Award. In 2017 she was at l'Alternative in person to present a retrospective of her work and to give a masterclass.