Tessa Hughes-Freeland
History
Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a British-born experimental film maker and writer living in New York City. Her films have been shown in a variety of venues, from international museums to seedy bars. The subject matter of her films is confrontational, transgressive, provocative and poetic. She works in a wide variety of mediums and formats. The personality of her work makes it hard to categorise.
Director
This film was made for an exhibition entitled "My Icon" Jumping off the springboard of the popular religious iconography of mother and child, as a mother I took my child as the subject.
Director
This film was made for an exhibition entitled "Ghosts of the Catskills". The history of the Catskills had made an impression on me was that of the alchemy of landscape and the influence of Woodstock hippie culture.
Herself
In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.
Self
A short film to accompany the reissue of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album The Good Son (originally released in 1990). The result is a determinedly human portrait of the unique body of work produced by the band over the last 25 years, told through those who have lived and loved the music, including close collaborators.
Director
Originally one side of a live multiple projection, INSTINCT mixes irrationally convergent imagery. An iconography of the intangible and intuitive, time lapses as elemental aspects of the female psyche. Psychedelic disorder and repetition, visual collage suggests a alternative syncretism.
Director
A surrealistic narrative is created which collapses different realities into one, by means of both similarities and juxtapositions. There is a certain irony in creating such a narrative which revels in the popular romanticism of a sleep state, as a means to open the door to an interior world of alternative realities and parallel universes.
Self
A short film to accompany the reissue of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album Kicking Against the Pricks (originally released in 1986). The result is a determinedly human portrait of the unique body of work produced by the band over the last 25 years, told through those who have lived and loved the music, including close collaborators.
Self
A short film to accompany the reissue of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album From Her to Eternity (originally released in 1984). The result is a determinedly human portrait of the unique body of work produced by the band over the last 25 years, told through those who have lived and loved the music, including close collaborators.
Director
Watch Out! is a lighthearted poetic comment which addresses concepts of male voyeurism. Exploring clichés to the point of saturation, these combinations present different ways of learning to look and looking to learn.
Editor
A film exploring the nature of sex and gender roles. Nymph, a fairy, walks and dances through a woodland before being pursued by Pan, an evil spirit.
Director
A film exploring the nature of sex and gender roles. Nymph, a fairy, walks and dances through a woodland before being pursued by Pan, an evil spirit.
Producer
Inspired by and loosely based on the introduction to Blue Of Noon by Georges Bataille, the title was taken from the name of the main character. It is a short portrayal of one person's descent into a state of degradation. In spite of her affluence, Dirty is rendered helpless in the hands of those she sought to patronise. The shifting points of view of this film allow the viewer to experience the protagonist as she is seen by herself, and how the world sees her.
Director
Inspired by and loosely based on the introduction to Blue Of Noon by Georges Bataille, the title was taken from the name of the main character. It is a short portrayal of one person's descent into a state of degradation. In spite of her affluence, Dirty is rendered helpless in the hands of those she sought to patronise. The shifting points of view of this film allow the viewer to experience the protagonist as she is seen by herself, and how the world sees her.
Director
short music-driven video by Tess Hughes-Freeland
Director
A document of a performance by the Butthole Surfers in the 1980s
Director
Filmic evidence of the infamous 1985 Richmond, Virginia exhibition that featured downtown artists Wojnarowicz, Marilyn Minter, Luis Frangella, and more painting naughty murals while on acid.
Director
A no-holds-barred portrait of addiction, RAT TRAP is an unflinching portrayal of a junkie injecting heroin cut with footage of (already expired) rodents being tortured and maimed, all underscored by a fiery guitar rock solo, painting a grim picture of numbing daily grind, dependency, and domestic urban squalor.
Director
Rhonda Goes to Hollywood functions in a similar fashion, exploring the very existence of Hollywood's stars as merely social constructions. The film follows Rhonda Zwillinger as she reenacts glamour poses in her camp/trash bedroom, and as she walks down Hollywood Boulevard. This is intercut with found footage (depicting various stars, such as Elvis, Bardot, Marilyn etc), which, like that in Play Boy, is re-photographed and fucked up so that the celluloid itself is as much of the film's theme as the images it depicts. The film thus positions the ironic glamorous stances of Rhonda as part of a series of repetitious gestures which serve to signify glamour and stardom (for example Rhonda's star on the Boulevard), while film stardom itself is shown to be a transient myth.
Director
Document of the experimental Butoh group Poppo
Director
Playboy is made from bits of vintage porno films, boxing films, westerns, and adventure and horror films.
Director
1983 short by Tessa Hughes-Freeland
Director
Documenting graffiti culture around East Village in 1983
Editor
Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s “Baby Doll” is a tiny slice of cinéma vérité from 1982 about the girls working the now defunct Baby Doll Lounge on Church and White St. in downtown Manhattan. It captures a moment before NYC got sanitized.
Director
Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s “Baby Doll” is a tiny slice of cinéma vérité from 1982 about the girls working the now defunct Baby Doll Lounge on Church and White St. in downtown Manhattan. It captures a moment before NYC got sanitized.
Director
Inspired by a dream, it is a reflection on the sentiment of loss. Working with film material directly, by combining handmade film, slides made from found plants and animals, and original ethereal imagery it considers abstract concepts within a romantic framework to create a visual poem. "The film is hand made using letraset, insects and plants" - Tess Hughes-Freeland
