Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)
In Hungarian folklore életfa connects the three spheres of the world; the sky, the earth, and the underworld. In Judaism etz hayim offers knowledge and comfort to those who may hold or touch her.
Landscape is further explored through a collage of natural sounds that observe silence, a sacred tenet of Judaism. The prepossession of womanhood is deconstructed and reconstructed through the feminine recitation of a Shabbat prayer. Shabbat is personified as a bride or queen in the Talmud, a central Jewish text. Furthering the connections and intersections between Jewishness and womanhood.
Running Time: 7 minutes
Block 1: September 8th, 6:30PM
Experimental/ LGBTQ+
Block 1: September 8th, 6:30PM
Experimental/ LGBTQ+
meyne hent (מײַנע הענט), translated from the Yiddish as my hands, is an adaption of the poem by Celia Dropkin. Using visual language, the filmmaker explores her intersecting identities of queerness, Jewishness, and womanhood. The film draws parallels between the body as landscape and landscape as body through intimately close portraiture and the queer lens. Connections emerge between religion and mythology, at times juxtaposed or reconstructed, surrounding the symbolism of etz hayim (the Tree of Life), shekhinah (the Divine feminine), and the mitzvah of the mikvah (ritual bathing).
In Hungarian folklore életfa connects the three spheres of the world; the sky, the earth, and the underworld. In Judaism etz hayim offers knowledge and comfort to those who may hold or touch her.
Landscape is further explored through a collage of natural sounds that observe silence, a sacred tenet of Judaism. The prepossession of womanhood is deconstructed and reconstructed through the feminine recitation of a Shabbat prayer. Shabbat is personified as a bride or queen in the Talmud, a central Jewish text. Furthering the connections and intersections between Jewishness and womanhood.
Website
Amber Rose McNeill is a queer Australian Film Director, Appropriated Media Artist, and Intimacy Coordinator based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a bigender artist, her work focuses on challenging social attitudes towards normative sexuality and traditional gender roles. He also frequently critiques the role that violence plays within media and film, via satire, social commentary, absurdism, and the queer lens.
Amber Rose’s films have screened nationally and internationally with Sydney Underground Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, Liverpool Underground Film Festival, Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Night of Horrors Festival, and Milwaukee Underground Festival.
Director Statement:
With meyne hent, I wanted to traverse the experience of my femme identity as it intersects with my Jewishness via a queer lens. This film is a personal expression of my experience as a queer, femme presenting, Jewish person, and how these intersecting identities are often not seen, or are expected to be modest and remain unexplored. It was important to me to include symbolism from within Judaism and my other cultural roots, in a way that is meaningful to my lived experience as a queer, Jewish, femme. It was also important for me to draw connections where disconnections occur, such as the disconnect between the body and the intellectual or spiritual self, and the disconnections between modern human life and the nature world. Poetry, prayer, silence, song, ritual bathing, the tree of life, the intimacy of living within a femme body, and viewing the world through the queer, femme lens are axioms that I wanted to share with an audience in order to offer a point of connectivity to identities that are a lesser focus within contemporary cinema.
 |
Amber Rose’s films have screened nationally and internationally with Sydney Underground Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, Liverpool Underground Film Festival, Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Night of Horrors Festival, and Milwaukee Underground Festival.
Director Statement:
With meyne hent, I wanted to traverse the experience of my femme identity as it intersects with my Jewishness via a queer lens. This film is a personal expression of my experience as a queer, femme presenting, Jewish person, and how these intersecting identities are often not seen, or are expected to be modest and remain unexplored. It was important to me to include symbolism from within Judaism and my other cultural roots, in a way that is meaningful to my lived experience as a queer, Jewish, femme. It was also important for me to draw connections where disconnections occur, such as the disconnect between the body and the intellectual or spiritual self, and the disconnections between modern human life and the nature world. Poetry, prayer, silence, song, ritual bathing, the tree of life, the intimacy of living within a femme body, and viewing the world through the queer, femme lens are axioms that I wanted to share with an audience in order to offer a point of connectivity to identities that are a lesser focus within contemporary cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment