Fringe! Lux & Club des Femmes Present This is Now: Film and Video After Punk: Through a Glass, Darkly

About

In the early 1980s, clubbers, art students, new romantics and members of the post-punk scene used inexpensive, domestic technology to find new modes of expression and subvert the mainstream media. Independent VHS tapes were released, stridently bypassing censorship, and Super 8 film was embraced as a cheap yet distinctly lyrical and direct new medium. The DIY approach of punk was powerfully reborn.

This specially curated programme focuses on work by post-punk’s most provocative female filmmakers who treated the moving image like a mirror or crystal ball; a surface of ivination through which to explore ideas around female subjectivity and that of the gendered viewer, evoking metaphysical journeys and challenging the limits of the body.

This programme includes particularly strong, challenging work that was originally connected to the industrial scene.

The Wound
Dir. Jill Westwood, 1984, UK, 18mins

Skinheads and Roses
Dir. Jill Westwood, 1983, UK, 7mins

The Branks
Dir. Akiko Hada, 1982, UK, 7mins

All Veneer and No Backbone
Dir. Holly Warburton, 1980-84, UK, 5mins

Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains
Dir. Cordelia Swann, 1983, UK, 12 mins

Grayson/Flowers/Jewels
Dir. Jennifer Binnie, 1985, UK, 3mins

Shadow of a Journey
Dir. Tina Keane, 1980, UK, 19mins

Passion Triptych
Dir. Cordelia Swann, 1982, 4mins

TRT: 75mins

Part of the touring programme 'This is Now: Film and Video After Punk', presented in partnership with LUX and the BFI National Archive. All images courtesy the artists and LUX.