About the screening:

SCHMEERGUNTZ

This was the film that set everything in motion. Schmeerguntz, coined after Nelson’s father’s non-sense 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’.

MOONS POOL

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 bath-tub from which yet 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.

SNOWDRIFT (A.K.A SNOWSTORM)

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. 

TIME BEING

Time Being is a commemoration in four sequences of Nelson’s mother. The film that starts and ends with lengthy black leader, is a brutal yet beautiful depiction of her mother dying and how the bond between them is cut off. After a prologue follows series of three shots, each beginning in static takes of her mother lying in a bed at a hospital. For each shot the distance to the mother increases and the camera moves closer towards Nelson.

MY NAME IS OONA

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 rythmical structure that accompanies the visual structure of the film that plunges into the experience of a child where both bliss and fear reigns. As so often in Nelson’s oeuvre there is a female subtext too: it is male voices that executes their authority upon Oona, whereas as a girl she is still equal to boys of her own age.

KIRSA NICHOLINA

A birth film.

“The film is a discovery of the eternal beauty and wonder of Nature. In extremely graphic detail, we watch the birth, becoming so involved, we’re feeling the heat and tension. KIRSA NICHOLINA is a simple, poetic statement that is fantastically involving and moving.” – Danny Weiss

TAKE OFF

Take Off is one of Nelson’s most hailed films. It is an amusing portrait of a stripper, beginning with a depiction of a professional mature stripper performing her act. After having removed her clothes, she starts to undo her body parts as well. The film ends with the stripper kicked out into space. Nelson is considerate towards her object, the stripper is performing the act with professionalism, both dignity and distance, and this force is hailed by the camera.