The Cinema of Ideas presents two essential short films from Fronza Woods + a rare specially-commissioned filmed interview with Fronza Woods by director Nadia Latif. Streaming for one week from 28 October – 3 November 2021. Tickets £5.
Fronza Woods’ film heroines are funny, clever, wise and instantly memorable. In the late 1970s, whilst living in New York, Woods made two brilliant short films, Killing Time and Fannie’s Film. Woods’ blend of portraiture and interviews draws us into the inner lives, dreams and desires of two New York women, one working class and one middle class. As a result, her aesthetically dazzling films, continue to daringly and beautifully challenge mainstream media’s ongoing stereotyping of women of colour.
Killing Time (1979, US, 10mins) is an offbeat, wryly comical look at the dilemma faced by a young woman (played by Woods herself, under the snappy name Sage Brush) who wants to kill herself but her quest is thwarted when her tight white jeans split and she decides to call it a day.
Fannie’s Film (1982, US, 15mins) portraits the day to day life of Fannie, a 65-year-old cleaning woman who works in a professional dancer’s exercise studio. Whilst performing her job, Fannie tells us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals and feelings.
With recent retrospectives at BAM in 2017 and Courtisane Film Festival in 2019, we are delighted to be presenting Woods’ films on The Cinema of Ideas together with a special filmed interview with Woods conducted in her home in the southwest of France in September 2021.
