Art films by Rina Sherman

Streaming video - 2014

Rina Sherman, a classical musician by training, turned to performance art and filmmaking in 1983, a year before she was exiled from South Africa and settled in France. She was a founding member of the performance art group, Possession Arts, in Johannesburg in 1983. Her early films show a strong performance art influence and her musical background has continued to be present in her work. In Chicken Movie. Cluck! she included reality and elements of everyday life in her work for the first time. In a way, the film pre-empts her meeting with Jean Rouch upon her arrival in France; she made the film after happening on the following idea by Rouch: "It is more interesting to film reality as evoked by my presence (and the camera) than to preten...d to be able to film it as is." The idea that there is no objective reality but only POV, motivated Rina to meet Jean Rouch, and some months later, he showed the film at the Cinémathèque saying: "This is a fresh voice; this is the kind of film we should be making today." Rina took his comment as carte blanche and subsequently invited Jean Rouch to act in two of her films, An egg with no shell and M. M. les locataires (Ladies and gentlemen, the boarders), a film about life in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec. Filmmaker: Rina Sherman. more