Film Festival Prologue

Notes on Prologue

At the Photographer’s seems like the perfect film to start with: a start with photography and Alice Guy-Blaché (1873 –1968), the first woman ever to direct a film. (more of her work in later programmes). We move from a studio in Paris to one on Stradbroke Island in Australia where Megan Cope (*1982), an Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka people shows us some of her multi-facetted work relating to identity, the environment and mapping practices. Then we hear Maria Lassnig (1919 –2014), the Austrian born international artist, sing her life while Manu Luksch (* 1970, Vienna) encounters extensive surveillance in London, where she is based. The programme ends with a great song by SNL and Ariana Grande, US American singer, songwriter, and actress. …’This is a feminist song’… a great line to end this first chapter of a women filmmaker’s festival.