A woman with an oddly hairy belly gives birth to a pair of hands in Marie Losier’s giddily inventive "portrait" of filmmaker Guy Maddin, done as a collaboration between the two iconoclasts. A longtime fan of Maddin, Losier (best known for other inventive portraits of underground film icons like Tony Conrad and George Kuchar) hoped to document him as well; "I hate my voice and face," Maddin replied, and sent her Super-8 footage of his hands instead. Losier interwove the footage into her own distinct tale, shot like a surrealist 1920s silent film. A must for fans of Losier, Maddin and ingenious cinema in general, MANUELLE LABOR was completed for the Berlin Film Festival (where Maddin was the guest of honor). - Jason Sanders A collaboration film by Marie Losier and Guy Maddin. Two sisters, five brothers, a doctor and two nurses and the miraculous birth of a pair of hands, but whose hands?
A documentary in which a group of young women meet for an art-making party. Located at The Beehive Collective in Washington, DC, six individual episodes are loosely interspersed, allowing each participant a chance to represent themselves. Included: a feminist stripper preparing for work, a puppet show, and a music video.
On The Velvet Chainletter, Joanie4Jackie
A short documentary about Mohamed Yousry, a naturalized American citizen whose life changed radically after September 11, 2001. Mohamed immigrated to the United States in 1980. For the next twenty years, he developed a full and happy life, as a husband, father, and academic. On September 13, 2001 Mohamed was approached by the FBI on his doorstep in Queens, NY. After appeal processes and an attempt to extradite him, Mohamed was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary in Fort Worth, TX. There, he was one of two Arabs in the prison population. Since his release, with the help of his friends and family, he is trying to piece his life together again.
