Generations
- Gina Carducci |
- 2011 |
- 30 minutes |
- COLOR |
- OPT
Rental Format(s): 16mm film
By Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci
In the spirit of mentoring and passing on the tradition of personal experimental filmmaking, Barbara Hammer, 70 years old, hands the camera to Gina Carducci, a young queer filmmaker. Shooting during the last days of Astroland at Coney Island, New York, the filmmakers find that the inevitable fact of aging echoes in the architecture of the amusement park and in the emulsion of the film medium itself. Inspired by Shirley Clarke's Bridges Go Round, both filmmakers edited picture and sound separately, joining their films in the middle when they finished making a true generational and experimental experiment.
In a time when digital dominates the art domain, a DIY aesthetic is embraced by Gina Carducci, a young thirty-year-old filmmaker who hand processes 16mm film and a seventy-year-old pioneer of queer experimental cinema, Barbara Hammer. Hammer invites Carducci to collaborate on a new film, Generations.
Celebrating Hammer's spontaneous shooting style and dense editing montage with Carducci's studied cinematography, the two filmmakers, generations apart in age, shoot the last days of Astroland in Coney Island, New York. The aged but vibrant amusement park, characteristic of the 70-year-old Hammer, is a fitting environment for the photoplay of the two Bolex filmmakers.
- BERLINALE
Generations won the Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival, the Director's Choice Award at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, and the Special Jury Award at the Side by Side LGBT International Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Selected Exhibition: MoMA, Tate Modern, Frameline.