THE WOODMANS (2010)
Two-week engagement
January 19 – February 1, 2011
Exclusively at Film Forum
209 W. Houston St. (W. of 6th Av.)
Daily Screening: 1:00, 2:50, 4:30, 6:20,
8:10, 10:00.
Documentary Has U.S. Theatrical Premiere Wednesday, January 19 at Film Forum
Lorber Films and Film Forum are pleased to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of THE WOODMANS, opening Wednesday, January 19.
Francesca Woodman’s haunting B&W images, many of them nude self-portraits, now reside in the pantheon of great photography from the late 20th century. The daughter of artists Betty and Charles Woodman (she a ceramicist and he a painter/ photographer), Francesca was a precocious RISD graduate, who came to New York with the intention of setting the art world on fire. But in 1981, as a despondent 22-year-old, she committed suicide.
THE WOODMANS beautifully interweaves the young artist’s work (including experimental videos and diary passages) with interviews with the parents who have nurtured her professional reputation these past 30 years, while continuing to make art of their own in the face of tragedy. The film grapples with such issues as parent-child competition and the toxic level of ambition that fuels the New York art scene. It also has much to say about the healing powers of creativity. Winner of the Best New York Documentary award at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
—Karen Cooper, Film Forum
“Francesca Woodman, the astonishing photographer best known for taking spooky, often nude self-portraits and then her own life at the age of 22 in 1981. This seductive narrative lays out Woodman’s epigrammatic journals, photographs and videos as clues in a self-murder mystery. Wrenching.”
—Logan Hill, New York Magazine
“Delicately constructed, marvelous to look at and poignantly elegiac. A portrait of the late photographer via her images—which are marvelous. Willis gives wide and beautifully composed exposure to the work of all the Woodmans, a family whose guiding ethos was art, all the time.”
—John Anderson, Variety
For other art-related films like Albert Maysles’ The Gates, Nicolas Philibert’s Louvre City and Isaac Julien’s Derek, visit www.kino.com/video.
