An Interview with Sophie Robinson about her film Me, My Mouth and I
First staged in 1972, Samuel Beckett’s dramatic monologue, Not I, is stark by design—consisting only of a woman’s mouth, hovering about eight feet above the floor and illuminated by a single spotlight. Speaking in rapid, tangential sentences, the voice belongs to a character called, simply, Mouth. In her 2018 film, Me, My Mouth and I, […]
Masturbation: it’s free!: Willow Maclay on Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore
On March 3rd, cléo will be co-presenting Sarah Jacobson’s film Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore at Toronto’s What the Film Festival (click here for event details). In anticipation, Willow Maclay—who wrote about Jacobson’s 16mm debut I Was a Teenage Serial Killer for our SHORTS issue—has penned an ode to Mary Jane and orgasmic self-realization. […]
An Interview with Filmmaker and Artist Nazlı Dinçel
When Michael Sicinski wrote about Turkish-American experimental filmmaker Nazlı Dinçel for our SHORTS issue, he described the discomfort that her films can elicit in audiences as imperative to the radical politics of her work: “they are strategic interventions of sorts, bringing sexual bodies into a space where they still have the power to be disruptive.” […]
Expanding the Canon: The Cinema of Michka Saäl
“She really was an unfortunately overlooked director.” Charlotte Selb, a colleague, wrote this in an email to me nearly a year ago. The filmmaker she was referring to was Michka Saäl, who had passed away suddenly after a quick illness in 2017. “As a woman, an immigrant and just somebody who wasn’t much of a […]
An Interview with Ella Cooper of Black Women Film! Canada
Black Women Film! Canada is a leadership program and collective dedicated to forwarding the careers, networks and skills of filmmakers and media artists who are Black female-identified. Based in Toronto, the program was founded by Ella Cooper: artist, filmmaker, educator, and community organizer. As evidenced by her leadership of BWF!, Ella has an ingenuity that permeates […]