Off-site: Gunvor Nelson Tribute II: Moons Pool

Introduction by film scholar Steve Anker and a pre-recorded video with filmmaker Lynne Sachs.

Please note: This screening takes place at the Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Total runtime: 74 min.

Screening 1 of 5

Schmeerguntz

Year: 1966
Country: U.S.
Language: English
Runtime: 15 min.
16mm. B&W.

This was the film that set everything in motion. Schmeerguntz, coined after Gunvor Nelson’s father’s nonsense word for “sandwich” (smörgås in Swedish), is a hilarious, grotesque and grave attack on the public ideal of the American housewife. Critic Ernest Callenbach wrote in excitement that “A society which hides its animal functions beneath a shiny public surface deserves to have such films as Schmeerguntz shown everywhere.”—Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University

Director: Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley.

Screening 2 of 5

My Name is Oona

Year: 1969
Country: U.S.
Language: English and Swedish
Runtime: 10 min.
16mm. B&W.

My Name is Oona was Nelson’s final breakthrough on the American avant-garde film scene. The sound consists of Nelson’s daughter, Oona, repeating the names of the days of the week and of her saying “my name is Oona.” The latter is edited into an expressive rhythmical structure that accompanies the visual structure of the film that plunges into the experience of a child where both bliss and fear reign. As so often in Nelson’s oeuvre, there is a female subtext too: it is male voices that execute their authority upon Oona, whereas as a girl she is still equal to boys of her own age.—Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University.

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

Screening 3 of 5

Fog Pumas

Year: 1967
Country: U.S.
Language: English
Runtime: 25 min
16mm. B&W. Color

Fog Pumas is the second film that Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley shot together. It received one of the grand prizes at the Knokke Experimental Film Festival, EXPRMTL, in 1967-68. The film is a hilarious, liberating exploration of absurd imagery and situations in which Nelson and Wiley also make fun of some classical avant-garde film techniques. It is an empowering film, made in the spirit of exploring the potentialities of filmmaking and insisting upon having fun while doing it.—Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

Screening 4 of 5

Moons Pool

Year: 1973
Country: U.S.
Runtime: 15 min.
Digital. Color.

Moons Pool marks a new path in Gunvor Nelson’s filmmaking in which she develops her interest in creating a weave of movements and superimpositions. The film that is mostly shot underwater, in a pool, begins with footage of water and a close-up of Nelson from which we move to her body immersed in water in a bathtub. Another transition occurs to a pool with male and female naked bodies swimming underwater. The latter part of the film is almost totally liberated from speech, and has a dreamlike, complex soundtrack consisting of sounds of waves, voices, water and music woven together into a seamless web of sounds.—Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

Screening 5 of 5

Snowdrift a.k.a. Snowstorm

Year: 2001
Country: U.S.
Runtime: 9 min.
Digital. Color.

Movement begins and ends with snowflakes, fleeting, floating, whirling and dancing in constant restlessness. Sudden changes in direction, composition, background, density, color and contrast interrupt the perpetual flow.—Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University

Director: Gunvor Nelson.