Sharon Couzin

Sharon Couzin (1943-2019) was a Chicago experimental filmmaker, painter, and poet who began making films in the early 1970s. Her work is known for its complex visual layering that reflects a personal, autobiographical point of view.

The magazine Jump Cut said of her, "Sharon Couzin works within a tradition of autobiography, personal vision and imaginative art" which "expresses the experience of being a woman in a recognizable but fresh and challenging way." Couzin's films explore dreams, distortion, ritual, repetition and rhythm, time and mortality, movement and stillness, form and structure, girlhood and gender roles, domestic life as a weapon.

In addition to her filmmaking work, Couzin was a significant figure in building and promoting the experimental film community in Chicago, Illinois. In 1983, while teaching filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Couzin helped found the Experimental Film Coalition, an organization that held regular monthly screenings, created the Onion City Film Festival and published several periodicals. Couzin served as the Coalition's President until 1988.

Couzin studied filmmaking at SAIC, earning a BFA there in 1976 and an MFA in 1977. After continuing on to teach at SAIC, she served as Chair of the Film Department for a decade.