Now – Joanie 4 Jackie

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Chainletter Filmmakers:

1995 The Velvet Chainletter

Patricia Baum, The Cleansing Machine
February 20, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I met Miranda July when I was working the Northwest Film Center in Portland, Oregon. She approached me about including my film, The Cleansing Machine in her Miss Moviola Project, which I immediately agreed to. I had been a part of a traveling compilation of women’s films called, Post Modern Sisters (PMS), so I already appreciated the need to get women’s cinema out to the public. I was 38 at the time.

What interested you about the project?
I think the fact that it included a variety of genres, styles and levels of craft-woman-ship is what initially interested me. Coming from a background of film (rather than video) I really appreciated the DIY approach that many of the other participants were utilizing. I was so over struggling to fund expensive cinema projects to somehow preserve a sacred art-form (which clearly implied a male construct). These new women makers were derailing and celebrating new forms of cinema, which appropriated the free use of video.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
At the time, yes I did consider myself a filmmaker. I was writing and directing my own films, and had assembled a small but loyal crew to work with. The only thing I was not comfortable with was the cost of shooting on film. The last film I shot on 16mm, Peace, Love ’92, I ended up editing and posting in video, which at the time was considered sacrilegious. I had to do it for economic reasons. Most grants at the time, gave you “just enough rope to hang yourself”.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
It was a very rewarding and heartbreaking process at the same time. One of my actors required almost no direction, she seemed to know exactly what I wanted. The other caused me much frustration and therefore multiple takes. There was almost no dialog which saved me in many ways. The voice-overs were recorded after-the-fact, and made it easy to work with the timing in the sound editing. All editing on this film was done on a Moviola.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I loved the idea of sending VHS tapes around with (loosely) curated women’s films. It had a subversive feel to it. I think it was a great example of using the tools that were available to make something really cool happen, in this case sharing women’s work with other women.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Never got to attend a screening

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I think the independent cine membership organizations like Film Arts Foundation and Artist’s Television Access in SF, and 911 in Seattle, had a huge impact by giving people access to equipment and mentors. Also, the regional granting organizations like Western States and film festivals like NW Film Center’s, NW Tracking, gave maker’s a place to show their work. I was never one to be affiliated with any movement or group, but held the following revolutionary women in high regard, Emma Goldman, Ulrike Meinhof, Valerie Solanis and Assata Shakir.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am an educator dedicated to democracy in education. I am presently archiving my work and making sure it doesn’t become obsolete as digital formats change. I continue to write screenplays and am working on a for-the-web series called, Classically Trained Punks, about how punk musicians learn their craft.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I would like to see bios of all the filmmakers and what they are currently up to. Links to their web sites would be welcome. An invitation for a new J4J series would be great.

Mary Billyou, Womens’ Punk Art Making (also Party Horsegirl on Me and my Chainletter and Flow on The Cherry Cherry Chainletter)
February 24, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I found out about Big Miss Moviola aka Joanie 4 Jackie through my photographer friend Cynthia Connelly in Washington, DC. I figure she must have picked up the flyer (it was a quarter-page black & white xerox) through other friends, probably at the Dischord House where she lived. I have heard that Bikini Kill had been handing them out at shows and they were living in DC at the time too. I believe I was about 25 years old.

What interested you about the project?
After considering the endeavor closely, I realized that this was exactly what I had been looking for – distribution of some kind, aligned with a politics and an audience I believed in. I had been researching other organizations, but they all seemed such remote possibilities for me (these were New Day Films and Women Make Movies). I hadn’t actually shown my work in the first place to a wide audience of any kind, so the idea of distribution was secondary anyway. I had been used to very small group situations like Riot Grrrl meetings and small screenings like I AM EYE, and installations at the Washington Project for the Arts, i.e. mostly one-time-only screenings at non-profit or alternative spaces DC. Word of mouth kind of things. So Joanie 4 Jackie/Big Miss Movioloa seemed to dovetail easily into what I had been doing anyway, in that I could imagine the audience as being like the one that I already was in, except across the United States. The xeroxed handout offer was something I was used to, similar to invitations to punk shows at houses, which were handed out at punk shows at clubs. It appeared to be a network, similar to Riot Grrrl letter writing activities, in which individual, seemingly isolated young women wrote to us (another imagined audience) at a post office box number. We read these letters aloud to each other in meetings, and then dispersed them to be responded to by each of us at a later time.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes I did consider myself a filmmaker. I had made two films or was in the process of making my second film. I also was working as a camera assistant on commercial productions. I was a projectionist too and later I worked at a video rental store.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Well I have so many associations with Womens’ Punk Art Making Party. There has been a lot of interest in it throughout my career. It started from a similar situation of a flyer that announced the event (although I personally knew many of the women involved), and it directed us to bring whatever art supplies we had, and I brought my videocamera.

Also, I’d like to dedicate it to Dara Greenwald, who added such a wonderful section to it (Puppet Girl), and who I continued to be close friends with under different circumstances and in different cities (Chicago, New York) until her recent death from cancer.

It was a very exciting time for me and for the other women involved, there was a lot of emotion going around, along with inspiration and upset.

I’ve made other videos using the materials from that original piece as well, so it has certainly been a generative piece for me.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was proud to be a part of it and I continue to be so. I tell colleagues about it sometimes and if they don’t know about it then they’re usually super interested. I’m also friends with other filmmakers and writers through being associated with it. I’m glad that it has taken place and its one of those things where you say to yourself, “Of course! This should be.” I also liked the project’s reference to Coppola’s comment about girls with video cameras and how there would be a revolution because of this technology. That had inspired me as well. I always felt aligned with the spirit of the project.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I attended a screening in Washington, DC ages ago downtown, in Chinatown. I don’t remember that much about it, except that I introduced myself to Miranda and I think she seemed a bit overwhelmed because she had just performed, so I left. I had wished that I had more time to talk with her however, but I didn’t know exactly how to go about it, as I didn’t know where she was staying etc. and I felt really insecure at that time anyway so it was a big effort for me to go to the event in the first place, even though my work was screening and I went with a friend.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Riot Grrrl, Dischord, the Pirate House, Slant 6, Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hannah, Joe Lally, Femme Flicke, New German Cinema, Kaja Silverman, Constance Penley, Feminism and Film Theory, The Beehive Collective, soul food, vegetarianism, veganism, intentional communities, zines, records, record shops, punk flea markets, thrift stores, old cars, Cynthia Connelly’s photographs, Dick Hebdidge and Stuart Hall’s book “Resistance Through Rituals,” Dick Hebdige’s book “Subculture,” pixelvision, Sadie Benning, Meltdown, The Boredoms, Ian Svenonius

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I teach filmmaking, write for the blog Screen Slate and other publications on digital media and practice. I’m finishing a series of five short 16mm films, for which I received funding for from The Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, and Outpost. I am an independent curator/programmer and I do work for hire for other artists and institutions (Anne Wilson, Martha Rosler, Marie Losier, Redmond Entwistle, Robin Rhodes, The Drawing Center, Art in General). I’ve collaborated with videomaker Sabine Gruffat on a Riot Grrrl-inspired performance project called The Free Translators.

1996 The Underwater Chainletter

Emily Richardson, Prosthetic Aesthetics
March 17, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I honestly can’t remember now how I found out about Joanie 4 Jackie but I was 25 and living in San Francisco studying filmmaking at SFAI.

What interested you about the project?
I liked the fact it was for women filmmakers and that it had a zine that went with the tape!

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I had just started making films then. I’d made a lot of Super 8 films and this was my first attempt at making something on 16mm and hand processing it. Part of the reason the film looks the way it does is because one roll of film all stuck together in the tank when I was processing it and created some fantastic effects.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I remember at the time living in a leaky warehouse on 6th St in San Francisco and spending a lot of time watching films with friends at Total Mobile Home Microcinema.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
There’s something so solid, yet ephemeral about VHS tape and at the time it was great to receive. Stranger now that I no longer have a VHS deck and everyone is sharing work online in so many different ways.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I remember coming to a screening, either in San Francisco or New York. I remember sitting on the floor and I remember Miranda’s big curly hair! Other than that it’s pretty sketchy!

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was a student at SFAI so watching a lot of experimental film and video work, taught by Ernie Gehr, George Kuchar and others. Total Mobile Home Microcimena was the best education in film I ever got though really. Rebecca Barten and David Sherman were like surrogate parents to me! (I’d come from London and didn’t know anyone in the city and they took me under their wing)

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am still making films and showing them at festivals, in galleries and museums internationally. I have a website with some info on my projects at www.emilyrichardson.org.uk and have a blog set up for my current film project at http://www.3churchwalk. blogspot.co.uk/

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
No – it looks great.

1997 U-Matic Chainletter

Malado Baldwin, Day Ditty
April 3, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Miranda July gave a talk and screening of her films in our school’s performance hall. Somehow with her outfit and persona it became this beautiful performance- at once outgoing and reclusive, she reached out to us, to me it felt, and invited submissions to her new Chainletter project. I later contacted her and submitted my film. I was in my early twenties at the time.

What interested you about the project?
I was making a lot of home movies at the time, and there were few resources for young filmmakers.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes, I considered myself both a student of film and a filmmaker.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?:
(see below)

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was a student in college, part of a new film program at Swarthmore. Miranda July was invited by my professor Patti White to lecture at the school, and she blew my mind! She left quite and impression. I got really excited knowing there were other girls out there doing it themselves.

Joanie4Jackie was a rare opportunity to see other women filmmakers and what they were up to.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
During intermission, Miranda assigned us a task of making our own mini movies with cameras she had set up around the building I remember that my best friend Jesse and I thought it would be funny and appropriate to shoot in the ladies room. So we went to the bathroom down the hall, got up on the sinks, and peed in them. At the time we thought it was hilarious and rebellious… I wonder what she ever did with these films!

After the talk, a few of us went back to the dorms to hang out, and I painted Miranda’s portrait while we chatted. I remember she had a crazy blonde spiky wig, and layers of pantyhose pulled over her platform shoes. It was very tank girl meets raver chic meets fairy …

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I had emerged from the 90s DC punk, riot-girl, positive force scene– a background which emphasized DIY political, musical and artistic movements. Then, in college, I studied feminist literature, alternative cinema and postmodern theory.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a filmmaker and artist, currently completing a film project called LUX/NOX.
My website: www.maladobaldwin.com

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
More pictures and more of the film clips!

Shannon Kringen, Goddess KRING
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I am 44 now so I was in my mid to late 20’s at the time I think? I worked at Kinkos in Seattle and saw a “Big Miss Moviola” zine in the recycle bin or on the counter I think? Or maybe Miranda gave me one? I was the cashier. I worked there from 1994-1997.

What interested you about the project?
I wanted to be with a group of artists and get my work out there and seen in a supportive homegrown handmade funky way. I did a public access TV show called “Goddess KRING” from 1995-2011 and submitting video to this project was an extension of that. I wanted my voice heard and seen and was curious how others would respond to me. I wanted to feel I could be my real authentic self and belong at the same time. This is an ongoing battle for me. I want to be authentic and yet connected. I feel like the loner miss fit odd person most of the time! I don’t like “blending in” but want to be included. I like “standing out.”

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I consider myself a multi media aRtist. (capital R intentional) Making movies is a way to get what is inside me out into the world. I love how powerful video is in combining audio/visual and motion in one medium…and that it can be seen online, television and screened in aRt galleries or movie houses. I also paint and take photos, write poetry and record my spoken word. I do silkscreening and printmaking and collage as well.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I wish I had gone further in submitting and done more!

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I think it’s a lovely concept. I get sick when I think about the competitive mean spirited way in which some creative people treat each other. To share work and distribute work in this way is very cooperative and friendly and reminds me of being in kindergarten and playing.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Not sure if I did or not? I have done many things over the years. If there was one in Seattle I might have? At 911 Media aRts Center?

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Public access TV, figure modeling for art schools (that is my “day job” and has been for 21 years. spiritual groups around Seattle, World Naked Bike Ride, Summer Solstice Parade people in Seattle. naturists, nudists, Tom Petty and Tori Amos music. Was at the time and still is.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?

I model for aRt classes nude for a living and I sell my aRtwork on my website. I hand paint shoes (gave one pair I made for Tori Amos to her in 1996 and she wore them on stage at the paramount theatre during one of her concerts).

I still make Goddess KRING videos and put them online here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/shannonkringen

A short doc was made about me called “Typecast Dragon.” It screened at the following:
1. Toronto Film Festival, 2. Seattle Film Festival, 3. Bumbershoot, 4. Northwest Film Forum, 5. Was a finalist in the 2012 International Documentary Challenge.
Seattle cult icon Goddess Kring wrestles with her public access fame as she transitions into a new cycle in her life. A finalist in the 2012 International Documentary Challenge, “Typecast Dragon” premiered Internationally at the Hot Docs Film Festival and premiered in the US at the Seattle International Film Festival.

I also self published this book recently and it’s selling:
aRt, Identity and the Sacred
Shannon Kringen’s 140 page book of multi media aRt. (mostly photography) and her philosophy on how aRt, Identity and the Sacred relate to each other. aRt as a spiritual practice.
http://www.blurb.com/b/4063156-art-identity-and-the-sacred

I am finishing my BA degree at Antioch University in Seattle and might go on to earn my masters combining aRt and psych.

I plan to write a book about my life story and fill it with synchronicity travel stories and multi media aRtwork. I have friends in many other countries and would love to figure model and couch surf my way around the world and write a book about that or make a film about it.

My main sites are here:
http://shannonkringen.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonkringen/
http://shannonkringen.livejournal.com/

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Not sure? Maybe a bio and links to everyone involved…their websites and what they are doing now? Future collaborations? A book about this project? Interview us all and make a documentary?

1998 Silver Chainletter

Kerthy Fix, Passion is a Red Dress Ripping
February 19, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
This was 1998 and I forget how I was approached. Via letter (!) I think…? I was fresh out of film school at the University of Texas.

What interested you about the project?
We were all making super 8 films and zines at the time. Joanie 4 Jackie felt like a natural extension of the creative community I was in. Austin may not have been as political as other cities of the time but it was a wonderful creative nook for women and queers and odd folks of all stripes. Maybe because of its resistance to easy politics it felt like a great place to explore. And giving your film for free to a chain letter was part of the zeitgeist.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was just starting to make films but I was shooting a lot of music. I thought it would go on forever, this DIY creative feeling which Joanie 4 Jackie was part of. And I suppose it has but the physical craft aspect is diminished as things go on the internet.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
It was originally shot for an in situ collective film series held on Valentine’s Day at the old Ritz Theater on 6th Street in Austin. The screening was called “50 Feet of Love” and everyone made their films by editing in-camera as they shot their film.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I loved that there was a place for young women filmmakers to come together around film. It felt like being part of a secret society of creatives.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
In Austin, some of us performed in Metamorphosex with Annie Sprinkle and were hugely influenced by her as well as Linda Montano who was teaching in the Art Dept at UT. Research Publication’s “Angry Women” was very meaningful and bell hooks, lydia lunch, and Diamonda Galas were inspiring. Friends were also active in the Lesbian Avengers and the music scene was quite important to most of us – which included such phenomenal bands as Biscuit’s Swine King, Power Snatch, The Horsies, Gretchen Phillips, Ed Hall, Pocket Fishermen and on and on. Some of us co-founded The Performance Art Church (PeaCh) and we did numerous performances in rock clubs all over Austin. The other founders Fausto Fernos, Sheelah Murthy, and Diana Garcia were all coming from music as a big inspiration as well.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I work in documentary and television as a director/producer. I made two music docs, one about Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields and one about Le Tigre on tour. I’m currently pitching tv show ideas and making another music doc about composer Sxip Shirey. I also wrote a script with Craig Harwood about the first famous transsexual Christine Jorgensen which is being shopped around to producers.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
All the movies online!

Diana Krause Martinelli, Weddings From My Window
March 18, 2013

What interested you about the project?
At the time I created this short film I wanted to share with women thoughts of hopes, dreams, marriage and choices that we get to make. It was a great place to express being a girl.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
A student filmmaker, this project was part of my going to film school to learn video production. Several years ago I started a record production company with my husband Maurice Oliver, called Electronfarm Records. Through Electronfarm records we have produced short music videos on Chicago El trains, Millennium Park, and pollution in the Sian Ka’an biosphere.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
After a divorce I went to film school looking to change my whole life. I had filmed the wedding processions in the local park over the last 3 years of my bad marriage. In school I started to look at these tapes and weave a story around them. Everything was still so raw emotionally, it was a great opportunity to throw it all at the wall, take a look, and move on.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I loved that it was a place to gather views of women by women. It was empowering at the time to be included. I have shown my video to battered women and they have thanked me for showing them that there is life out there even after such an ordeal. Going public was scarey and invigorating all at once.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?

My textile design career took off, I designed textiles for swimwear & menswear. Currently I am designing textiles & carpets for the hospitality industry. My career has allowed me to travel the world. I also remarried and started a family. With my husband, we run Electronfarm Records. Recently I produced a book New York, Wish You were Here, which has been in the works for 20 years. This came out on Amazon last year and will be available next year in hardcover through Schiffer Publication. I paint and create videos when I can find the time.

Kerthy Fix, Passion is a Red Dress Ripping
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was about 27. A friend had told me about them but I really didn’t know what they were. I had a friend who was very involved in Mail Art so I loved the concept of doing it with film.

What interested you about the project?
I think because in Austin, Texas during the ’90s there was a very active, alternative filmmaking scene, I thought it was completely normal. There were a lot of ladeez and queers who were involved in the film scene in Austin and I came to think of these things being inseparable. We were making and screening Super 8 films edited in camera, people were taking local musician’s records and making videos to each song — there was a lot of independent film activity. So the chainletters made me understand that it was larger than our little scene.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
In the early 90’s, my boyfriend at the time, and I were visiting Dallas and we went with his brother to meet an older artist in Deep Ellum. When we met the artist, my ex introduced his brother as a filmmaker and then introduced me as his girlfriend. Later, I asked him why he didn’t introduce me as a filmmaker too (I was in film school) and he said, “you haven’t made any films.” This came as a complete shock to me, as I was making films in school. Once I stopped being pissed, it jump-started me to really MAKE stuff. Screening at small independent events, making art with friends, and being part of the Silver Chainletter were all things that made the me-in-my-head become the me-in-the-world.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I remember getting the tape and being so proud that I was included. It felt like I was part of a very cool, underground community. I valued this inclusion partly because I didn’t know the people involved — it wasn’t something that came to me out of friendship, but something that came from a solidarity with other women and artists.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time, it seemed like something small and maybe obscure. But in retrospect, I see how these small seeds fed me. That it was in fact one of the things that kept me growing, helped me know my importance and gave me the courage to make art in the face of sexism, judgement and lack of funds. I also see how it was a specific moment. A pre-internet, hand-made art moment, that was ephemeral. I thought it would go on forever but it had to end as technology changed and people got more professional. Recalling it, it feels very special and precious to me now. A really beautiful time of joyous freedom and learning.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was very influenced by the weirdo, queer lady rock that was surrounding me in Austin, Texas at the time — Biscuit and Swine King, Power Snatch, Eleanore Plunge, Daniel Johnston, Girls in the Nose, Moist Fist, Ed Hall, Pocket Fishrmen, The Horsies. KOOP community radio got on the air then and I was a DJ. The Research Publication “Angry Women” was very influential. Performance artist Linda Montano and installation artist Bill Lundberg were teaching at the University of Texas which inspired a group of us to start a performance art group called The Performance Art Church (PeACh). The Austin Film Society showed strange and beautiful classics above a coffee shop to 5-10 people like Chantal Ackerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” or Yvonne Rainer’s films.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m a working filmmaker in New York. I make a living producing documentaries and television series to finance my own projects — “Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields” and “Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour”.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
More videos! But I know that’s hard. Thank you for doing this! xoxoxoxoxo

1998 The Cherry Cherry Chainletter

Vanessa Renwick, Toxic Shock
February 19, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I lived in Portland and heard of Miranda and Joanie 4 Jackie. I was 36 years old.

What interested you about the project?
That I would get to see other lady made movies. I had made work, but had hardly ever shown it. I was still making work and not really showing it. To get my work seen by others, and see others work was a good idea to me.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
It was just at the beginning point of myself identifying as a filmmaker, even though I had been making films since the early 80’s. My relationship to my films was more as a journal, documenting, recording. Even though there were edited stories, I did not start sharing them a lot until I moved to Portland.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
There are 6 different people’s hands in that film. At the time I made it I was fucking 5 of them.

Tampons do not expand in gasoline, so they in facet, are not a good object to use when you make a molotov cocktail.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
Any time you get snail mail, then or now, it is the cherry on top.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Matt McCormick had started doing screenings every two months in Portland at that time. Having a deadline every two months to show something publicly really cranked up the prolific dial in me. There were also one day art shows in Portland, The History Show, the Map Show…a large group of people, all sorts of art in em. Super inspiring. I was running the small press and journals section at Powell’s Books. I had a reading series there once a month. People writing and creating their own zines and chapbooks were a huge source of my news.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am an artist. I make films, video installations, sculptures and photography. I write, both for my films, as well as for publication. I am a lifer.

Wynne Greenwood, 1,2,3 This is Me
March 25, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I can’t remember exactly, but I think I found out about Joanie 4 Jackie through Chainsaw Records probably around 1996-97. I was 19 years old.

What interested you about the project?
When I heard about Joanie 4 Jackie, I was taking video and screenwriting classes at college. While it seemed like there was a community out there in the world for girls playing music (Riot Grrl), I was interested in the possibility of a similar community and network forming around other art forms, especially video. In addition to that desire, my video class was mostly guys and also mostly people wanting to go into feature or commercial filmmaking. I felt connected to and inspired by the experimental nature of a lot of the J4J work. Not only was it girls, it was girls making weird work.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I definitely considered myself a video maker, though at the time I was questioning when a video could stop being a school project and start being an art project.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
From both then and now, Joanie 4 Jackie felt like it created space in the world. The chainletter thing of “If you do this, something will happen” was real. Looking back on J4J now, what I’m struck by is how relevant and needed it still feels.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was a big fan of Riot Grrl.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am an artist and a teacher. I teach video and performance!

1999 The Break My Chainletter

1999 The M.I.A. Chainletter

Alexandra “Lex” Gjurasic, Tequila Annunciation
March 20, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Our film was made in 1995 but our chainletter is dated 1999. In 1995 I would have been 16 or 17 years old. From 1994-2001 we made a variety of films. I’m not sure how we found out about Joanie 4 Jackie…a zine? Riot Grrrl community hear say? Gossip at the Velvet Elvis club in Seattle? Directly from Calvin Johnson?

What interested you about the project?
To participate in anything Ms. July was/is apart of was/is still massively cool. To have had exposure to an audience for our film was awesome. Back in the day before the Internet you couldn’t just upload a film to be seen by millions. It took elbow grease and stamps to get exposure!

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Of course we did! The alternative high school we attended have us an environment to pursue anything creative that struck our fancy. I’m sure at least one of us got high school credit or our film.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
The “set” was my teenage bedroom. Our “costumes” were our everyday clothes perhaps pilfered from our high school’s Free Store. The car in the film was my actual ’72 Nova hatch back. In one of the final scenes we needed a guy to play the boyfriend. Having no dudes on hand we took creative liberties. One of us voiced the boyfriend from behind a closed door. It seemed to play well for what we needed in front of the camera.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
J4J was fully empowering! We knew anything Ms. July was a part of would be cool, authentic and as girls our work would be respected.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Riot Grrrl was the foundation for all of our zines, films and shenanigans. If we had any musical talent, The Blackheart Gang would have been a band. For me personally, Miranda July was a big inspiration to me as an visual artist. I remember when she got accepted into the Whitney Biannual. That gave me a goal for what I could reach for as an artist. It was highly inspiring to me.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
Currently I am making paintings and objects as an artist and designer. View my art here: www.alexandragjurasic.com Recenly I launched Pyragraph.com as Creative Director. Pyragraph is an online how-to business publication for career minded artists and other creatives. I’d love to interview Miranda for Pyragraph! Please!! When the Blackhearts get together we are still making films in much the same spontaneous and subversive fashion. Only now we have children to use as props. Here is a link to one of our more recent films. Written by the Blackhearts. Directed by Zarya Rowland Bintz of Zeroand Productions. http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=772TqHzvMe4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D772TqHzvMe4

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Perhaps links to our current pursuits. I’d like to be able to watch my film. Perhaps awesome Riot Grrrl throw back merchandise? I’m still down to wear a silk screened baby T-shirt!

Lara Odell, Diver
March 26, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Sara Cooper, a friend and collaborator, had a CD from Kill Rock Stars, or K Records? I forget. It contained the Big Miss Moviola ad inside. She encouraged me to send in one of my videos. It was 1998 or so, so I was 27.

What interested you about the project?
The chainletter tape idea made me realize that there are women video artists and filmmakers scattered around the U.S. whose movies I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. There seemed to be a lot of possibility. It felt empowering and exciting, the idea of a low-budget mix tape that wasn’t edited or curated, and was easily accessible to anyone who wanted to participate in the project.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was an undergrad at The School of Art and Design at Alfred University, in Alfred, NY, studying video art and printmaking. I think I considered myself a video artist, or felt that I was on my way to becoming one. At Alfred we learned to treat video like a malleable material — that the video signal could be manipulated like paint, or clay. The materiality of it was emphasized rather than it’s narrative potential, although I was drawn to its narrative possibilities too. Back then I was experimenting with image processing, running both appropriated material and new material that I shot through the diverse and unique processing tools that Alfred had. There was also an emphasis on sound, and we were encouraged to build soundtracks with similar audio recording and processing tools at Alfred.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
This is a personal anecdote and maybe not so interesting to this archive, but in retrospect I don’t know why I didn’t submit “Iris Pupil,” the movie I made with Sara Cooper, who introduced me to Big Miss Moviola. That video seemed more in line with the general feel of the Joanie 4 Jackie project. I think I wanted to submit something I made alone, which was “Diver,” which I think was possibly my first video. I had been inspired by Bill Viola’s “Reflecting Pool” for that one.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
In some ways it doesn’t feel that long ago! But it was, in a sense, considering where I am in my life now, where my art is, and especially how technology has changed video and filmmaking and its distribution. I think I have the same feelings toward J4J then as I do now. It was a different context then, though, before YouTube and so much social media. I felt then — and now — that the idea behind J4J was “freeing” because it gave women filmmakers an opportunity to share their work/see other work in a context that wasn’t dictated by a professional art world. You didn’t have to compete to “get your work in.” J4J gave validity to the basic fact that you had the gumption to make a movie in the first place.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I have a three year old, and I’m working as an artist and illustrator, making the occasional stop-motion animation.

2000 Ball and Chainletter

Lisa Hammer, Empire of Ache
February 19, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was approached by Miranda July after showing Empire of Ache at many festivals. I was 33. I instantly knew it was a wonderful thing to be a part of.

What interested you about the project?
I love the collection of womens’ voices together in a time capsule. I love the fact that it doesn’t care about breaking into the patriarchy of Hollywood- it blazes its own trail.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I had been a filmmaker for about 10 years and I had always wanted to be included in art gallery shows more than being a famous Hollywood director. My films have always been surreal, experimental and funny, and definitely quirky.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Dame Darcy and I created the costumes and props with found objects from our friends vintage stores and from the street. Back in those days you could often find really interesting and useful art supplies on the streets. Darcy also got us funded by two Wall street CEOs named Pinky and Pansy who became her patrons and slaves. We also shot in glorious 4x b&w super-8 film using only in-camera effects like dissolves and double exposures. One of the human puppets became famous on Broadway starring in Rent and the other two-headed human puppet was played by a 9 year old girl and a grown mailman kneeling on the floor to match her height.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was a wonderful gesture for one female filmmaker to help SO MANY of us to get our work out into the world and to make us feel that our work was important. Now I’m so honored to be a part of this project.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I was unable to attend a screening.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was watching a lot of German Expressionist fairy tale films, Maya Deren films and John Waters films. I was also part of a Goth-Victorian-Retro movement in NYC throughout the 90’s and naughties and we were creating a lot of films, music and art and collaborating with each other. I was working with Masters of Super-8 and other independent film organizations.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am still a director: my new feature film The Sisters Plotz is premiering at The American Cinematheque/Egyptian Theater in LA in May 2016. I also write, sing, edit and act, and my voice is used on a Cartoon Network show “The Venture Bros” where I play Triana Orpheus. My husband Levi and I are launching an original series “Maybe Sunshine” in April, the show is about me trying to re-start my rock career in NY at age 48. The show is a comedy and features our band Radiana. It focuses on the delights of aging and trying to remain relevant as an artist.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Maybe a poster for each film? Or photo of the filmmaker?

2000 The Banana Cremeletter

Mirka Morales, Goiter Girl
March 29, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I had been out of film school for a few years, working terrible jobs, trying to pay off my student loans. One of my dearest teachers from Cal Arts, experimental filmmaker Betzy Bromberg, had a screening in San Francisco, where I live. Betzy, whose work I love, has been incredibly supportive throughout the years. She gave me a postcard for the Big Miss Moviola project. It probably took me a moment to send my video in. I was 30 years old.

What interested you about the project?
The Big Miss Moviola postcard I received was seductively cryptic. Even though I am definitely a feminist, I was a bit wary of women-only projects. My main concern being, do they limit their audience from the start? But I liked the spirit of the postcard, it had a punk rock Riot Grrl DIY quality about it.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
The film I submitted, Goiter Girl, was a student film that I had made. When I participated, I was still figuring out how to continue making films outside of a school environment, struggling to become independent, financially & technically. Being fully in touch with my vision, process and ideas; “perfecting” ones’ craft, would not come until much later for me.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I didn’t really know that much about the scope of the project. For me, being included was definitely one of those moments of encouragement along the way to not give up on making films, if it’s what you love. Now that I know more about the project, I’m impressed by what it created, an incredible network of encouragement. I also was not fully aware of the open, anti-curatorial aspect of what was included. The importance of the project, this experiment, is just revealing itself.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Cult films from the sixties and seventies, early internet, zines, Mad Cat Film Festival, Seattle Underground Film Festival, Film Arts Foundation (San Francisco), Jon Moritsugu, Sarah Jacobson, Betzy Bromberg, Suzan Pitt, Cal Arts, comic and graphic novels, Fantagraphics, thrift stores, Dan Clowes, Fiona Smyth, Cindy Sherman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Os Mutantes.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I have since finished a couple short films, Elfmädchen and Imum Coeli (bottom of the Sky), and am currently working on 13th Street Division, also a short.

2000 Perfect 10: The Chainletter

Katherine McDowell, The Woman Who
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I found out about the chainletter tapes from my college’s film department. I was around 21 at the time.

What interested you about the project?
I loved the idea of women filmmakers sharing their films and being part of a compilation.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was studying filmmaking and dreamt of becoming a filmmaker.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was a very cool power-to-the-people (power-to-the-women) concept. I was also frustrated by how under-represented women filmmakers are and found the project empowering. Thirteen years later, I’m glad to still have my tape and pleased to see it catalogued on the website.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
At the time, the Zine movement was gaining attention as one of the few ways that creative people could affordably be heard without jumping through hoops and working within the system. Though it’s hard to imagine, J4J tapes were being made before the social media/blog/internet revolution so it was challenging sending your creative work out there into the world.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am now a painter, printmaker and writer. For me, filmmaking is an old lover and treasured memory. At least I got to work on Super 8 and 16mm back then!

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Is there any way to attach a digital version of my film to the site like some others?

Kim Wood, Advice to Adventurous Girls
February 21, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I’d seen Miranda’s film “The Amateurist” and been thrilled by it. I was an artist in my twenties, inspired by photographer Cindy Sherman (Untitled Film Stills series) and filmmakers Anne McGuire (“When I Was a Monster”, “I Am Crazy and You’re Not Wrong”) and Chantal Akerman (“Je,Tu, Il, Elle”, “Jeanne Dielman”). I felt something resonant in what Miranda was doing and kept my ear to the ground for future projects. When I learned she was inviting women filmmakers to send her their own films, I did, in a heartbeat.

What interested you about the project?
I loved the mission, the D.I.Y. attitude, the mix of irreverence and earnestness in the promotional video and fliers. Joanie 4 Jackie created a forum that allowed the community to reveal itself and strengthen by doing so.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was a photographer who eased into filmmaking by attaching a motor-drive to my still camera to shoot twelve frames per second to make silent movie inspired flip-books. Then I bought a wind-up Bolex 16mm film camera and slept beneath streamers of clothes-pinned index cards, each representing a film scene. Each day I carried a tackle box filled with paper tape, splicers, grease pencils and sat in darkness with a six-plate Steinbeck editing machine. Akin to acquiring a trade like blacksmithing or millinery, I felt I was being inducted into the arcane guild of filmmakers.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
I began with a shoebox of mysterious 1920s photographs. In them, a young woman—calves sheathed in leather, chest blazoned with skull and crossbones—straddles a motorcycle and rides perpendicular to the ground, chasing her own shadow on a twenty-foot high Wall of Death.

I didn’t own a computer, but there wasn’t much of a World Wide Web yet anyway. So I called strangers—carnies, bikers, daredevils, historians—to ask if they knew or had known “Lillian LaFrance, The Girl Who Flirts with Death”. No one did, though many had heard her name. I began to face the impossibility of my task but couldn’t give up—somehow I needed Lillian.

The History Room of Oakland’s main library has an imposing wall of local phone directories for each county from 1869 to 1943. One afternoon, on a hunch, I went there and selected one at random, 1938, and there was my first clue: my daredevil, living on Dante Avenue. I checked fifteen years in both directions and found no trace, save the first book. Lillian wanted me to find her—she needed me, too.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
There are now many other means of production, outlets, ways to connect that shift focus and broaden the cinematic landscape beyond “Hollywood”. Joanie 4 Jackie not only anticipated this shift, but helped to launch it. It was immensely validating as an artist to be included, and just plain cool to see the other women’s films, all of which I likely wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
The San Francisco 1990s experimental filmmaking scene was so vibrant and generous. Lynne Sachs taught me (among other things) how to load a movie camera, Gail Silva’s Film Arts Foundation gave me my first grant, filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Lynn Kirby and Jeanne Finley critiqued my first footage, Craig Baldwin gave me my first public screening, at Artists’ Television Access, Greta Snider and Bill Daniel toured that film around the U.S. as part of a mobile art show via VW van. There were so many inspiring makers and venues, I couldn’t help but pick up a camera and see what would happen.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
My chainletter film was based on the life of a Kansas farm girl who ran away with the carnival and traveled the globe as a motorcycle daredevil, breaking hearts from Hong Kong to Hollywood. Although this feminist pioneer inspired me, her regrets about her limited opportunities and the price exacted by fame also broke my heart.

For more than a decade I’ve been haunted, daisy-chaining a timeline from new evidence, reaching for deeper understanding. But I was neither able to escape nor tell this story with the courage and candor it demanded until I accepted its lesson regarding the rewards and consequences of life lived on one’s own terms. A different daredevilry.

I’ve since written a book about her life and my haunting. Part fictional biography set in a Burmese mental hospital in the 1930s, part literary memoir set in an artist’s colony in present-day New Hampshire, “Advice to Adventurous Girls” incorporates the unpublished letters and photographs of the first woman in the world to ride a Wall of Death.

2001 2001: A Chainletter

Vanessa Renwick, The Yodeling Lesson
February 19, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I had already been included on the Cherry Cherry. I was 39 years old.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was having my work seen more and more by this time and definitely saw myself as a filmmaker, as well as a writer.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
We shot Moe riding her bike naked downhill with no hands 3 times. The first time a car followed her all the way down. The second time my camera work was off. The third time was the charm. It was Easter morning and really cold out. When I watch the movie now I can hear my voice, in my head, yelling at the person who was driving the truck that I was in the back of to slow down or speed up.

When I went over to Donovan Skirvin’s house to pick up the score, he was still making it. He had a hard on while composing.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
Any time you get snail mail, then or now, it is the cherry on top.

2002 Me and my Chainletter

Jon Davies, P&S Forever
March 23, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was in my late teens and I had been very invested in Riot Grrrl music and culture from the time I was around 15. Back then I was really hating high school – a big public school in the suburbs of Montreal, Canada – and wanted to drop out, so I started reading a ‘zine called Drop Out, which had a lot of articles and a series of “ads” for pen pals who were interested in youth liberation, anarchism, unschooling, etc. (This is in the mid-nineties before the Internet took over.) I became pen pals and eventually very dear friends with Jade Crown, a girl in Olympia, WA, and with some of her friends, and I visited them when I finished high school and was volunteering at an anarchist bookstore and going to an alternative college “downtown.” Olympia cemented my love for Riot Grrrl. I think I first became aware of Miranda July’s performance records on Kill Rock Stars, and then saw the Big Miss Moviola Chainletter tapes for sale at the record store in Olympia, and thought that they it was a fantastic project (I was into film).

What interested you about the project?
I think all the obvious things that weren’t so obvious back then before YouTube and social media. The fact that you could put your heart and soul into a movie, send it away, go crazy waiting and waiting, and then eventually receive this amazing VHS tape that embedded you and your film within a group of sympathetic others who were also looking for a feeling of community, beyond geographic or other limitations, linked instead by a shared politic, subculture or belief in cooperation and DIY self-expression.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was very interested in film: movies like “I Shot Andy Warhol” and “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” which came out around the time I turned 16 were really decisive for me, as were the incredible films/videos by Toronto artist/activist John Greyson (who went on to become a friend) like “Urinal” and “Lilies.” When I made something for a chainletter tape, I was experimenting with making short films and videos, very casually. I actually shot my film on Super-8 and edited it in camera – I was amazed it even turned out. I never thought of myself as a filmmaker, I think I was more focused on my queer identity and my involvement in a lot of activism.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I wanted to shoot a roll of Super-8 film and create a simple narrative with the stuff around me, based around this persona I had imagined for myself of a girl named Penny. The “P&S Forever” of the title refers to Penny and Spiderman; a life-size inflatable Spiderman was one of my most prized possessions (I have gone on to collect a lot of toys/tchotchkes to the point that I’m considering changing my drag name to “Dusty Knick-knacks”). I believe the “narrative” – if you could call it that – involved me catching my sweetheart, Spiderman, in an embrace with another woman (played by my co-director, Lise Kuhn), and then I cry about it on my bed while wearing a tiara. (I still have the tiara and the bedsheets.) Lise and I shot it in the home of a friend – in retrospect: a needy, recently out fag twice my age. I’m sure it didn’t take us very long because we only shot 3 minutes of film.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was born male and thought I was trans (or something) in my late teens and early twenties. After leaving my (queerphobic) high school, I cross-dressed in a crazy suburban mall punk-goth-raver mashup style for a few years and was a young genderfucker. I was trying to figure out how to perform my gender in a way that subverted masculinity as much as possible; I was very young and boyish-looking but could not imagine becoming a man. I thought my ideal would be that people would see me and treat me as a “girl,” though I didn’t want to change my body. I really wanted to be part of the Big Miss Moviola project so I engaged my good friend Lise to be my co-director in case it would be verboten for a girl-identified boy to submit a film. I was shocked last week to re-read that I boldly described myself as a “trans girl” in the synopsis I submitted of the film, I didn’t realize I had ever used that word for myself because I was super-sensitive about claiming an identity I wasn’t. I’ve learned over the past ten years that I am not MTF but I identify strongly with the term “genderqueer” and generally have what one could call a post-gender view of identity that is steadfastly opposed to any kind of essentialism/biological determinism around sex and gender. Or actually one way I figured out to describe myself at one point, which has endured, is “a girl who doesn’t mind being trapped in a fag’s body.”

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Too many to name, but let me try: Jade Crown, Brinn and Rita Moore, and Andrea Kormandy in Olympia, WA; Miranda July, Bikini Kill/Julie Ruin/Kathleen Hanna, Sleater-Kinney, Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile, Mukilteo Fairies, Huggy Bear, Team Dresch, Tori Amos, Björk, PJ Harvey, Ani DiFranco; Dale Altrows and other friends from the Libriarie Alternative in Montreal; Drop Out, Teen Fag, Outpunk and many other zines; prison justice, sex work, queer, and animal rights activism; The Teenage Liberation Handbook…

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I went on to make a few short videos as a film studies/interdisciplinary studies in sexuality BFA student in Montreal, and then after I moved to Toronto to pursue an MA. Midway through my MA, I realized I was better suited for writing (and eventually curating and programming) film and video – mostly experimental work, or “artists’ film and video” – rather than making movies myself. After my MA I curated a number of screenings with an experimental film/video group called Pleasure Dome, and then eventually began working my first real, year-round, full-time job, at a big contemporary art gallery in Toronto, where I started off curating and coordinating event-based programs and then gradually began organizing contemporary art exhibitions (which include everything, not just moving images). This is what I do now, at a really lovely contemporary art museum in the suburbs of Toronto that does amazing programming, including an ongoing series of exhibitions about historical and contemporary feminist practices.

2002 Who Stole My Chainletter?

Lara Odell, Grandma Baba and Little Boris
March 26, 2013

2003 The Sugar Caneletter

Olivia Ciummo, Movie for Mum
March 22, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I feel like I heard about J4J when I was looking for other women making films and exploring artists.

What interested you about the project?
I remember being super excited about this project! The thought of sending around your work to other filmmakers who were making from similar experiences felt so right!

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
YES! Yeah, I was a filmmaker, still am.

I was just about to finish undergrad, a production program in Pittsburgh PA where I was the only woman graduating from the program that year. I was making experimental works on 16 mm and had also started showing my work nationally in micro cinemas and art venues.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I remember my friend Becky and I gave Miranda July our tape in person after one of her live performances in Pittsburgh Pa. A bit later I received correspondence that my friend Becky and I would be included! I remember getting in touch with some of the folks on the Sugar Caneletter. Eileen Maxson was it you or did we meet later?

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I loved it; I thought it was such an original way to connect with other filmmakers. In retrospect, I feel the same!

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I did not attend any screenings of J4J.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
At the time I was working at Pittsburgh Filmmakers with T. Foley, one of my mentors and close friends on the Media Literacy Arts Education Program. Both she and the institution were great inspirations. I also was a huge fan of attending of Jefferson Presents, a local micro cinema where I got to see all the amazement of experimental film. I found my inspiration in friends, music, Jefferson Presents, teaching, filmmaking, traveling, Riot grrrl, throbbing gristle…really anything intense.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
These days I’m lucky enough to just be working on my art, making new film works, thinking + writing for a full length film, doing a residency and screening my stuff. Last year I taught in Higher Education, Film and Video Production + Time-based Arts.

Linda Feesey, Sex and Death with Little Teddy
May 24, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Miranda July personal appearance and screening in Toronto at Cinecycle sponsored by the Pleasure Dome collective.

What interested you about the project?
I wanted to get my work into a public forum of young women.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I had been a filmmaker for many years and was somewhat older.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
It was shot in rural Ontario and I remember a couple of shots I really liked. One is of a bumble bee on a Scotch thistle swaying in the wind in an overgrown field. Also, a vaselined shot of cows. They came up right to the camera out of curiosity.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I think it was something of its time. Lo-fi, communal, volunteer. It was quaint and innocent of commercial concerns.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Pleasure Dome screening collective.
Broken Pencil magazine on zines.
Into the Wasteland performance events.
Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am not involved in filmmaking for the past 5 years. I am a full-time public librarian.

Kate Hartman, Surfacing
March 17, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I must have been 19 or 20? I learned about it in school. Or maybe on the internet. But I remember watching one of Miranda’s early pieces in my Video Art class and some how that led me to J4J.

Later, when I had graduated I became the assistant to the Film Department and was told that we would be caring for the J4J archives! They arrived in many boxes and I helped with organizing them and producing one or two more chain letter tapes.

What interested you about the project?
The connection! The bold romanticism. The sassy can-do attitude. In addition to wanting to share my work I wanted to be a part of THAT.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes, of sorts. I was making films and videos. I was a student in the Film & Electronic Arts program at Bard College. I was learning about avant-garde film and video art for the very first time. I has spent my adolescent years as a photographer and was excited to learn about ways in which I could expand my practice. I was making 16mm films and learning about digital video editing for the very first time. I can remember that the animation of the text in the video I submitted took about 20 hours to render!

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
It was the first time my work was ever shared or distributed within the context of my field! It was hugely empowering. Since then I’ve given a TED talk, shown work at the MOMA, and written a book, but nothing quite had the same zing of that initial realization that STRANGERS, fellow lady movie makers that I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW could be watching my video is places I hadn’t even heard of!

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time I was just excited about getting my work out there. Now, as a professor and an artist who likes working with participation I’m more interested in the overall structure, the tone, and the social contract associated with the J4J project.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
We held a few screenings at Bard.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
The Yes Men, Matt McCormick, Sidney Petersen, Luis Bunuel

I was thinking about the internet, taking a lit class in New Media, playing with site-specific theater, and collecting people’s dreams.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a professor at an art & design school (OCAD University) in Toronto. I am also an artist, designer, inventor, and I do a lot of public speaking. The only films I make now are demonstrations of the interactive objects I created. Once I started making video installations it made me want to learn about sensors and interactivity. So I went to grad school and somehow I ended up in with a specialty in wearable technology! But the themes of my work are still the same – longing, understanding, connection. Attempts to explore the ways in which we relate to ourselves, each other, and the work around us.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
What’s next? The world has changed so much since the 90s. What’s the modern version of the chainletter tape? And what work is it crucial for us to see women making today? I think about that a lot in my own work. I want to see what Joanie 4 Jackie will do next. What’s the latest challenge? What’s the newest promise? And how can we share it all in a meaningful way?

2003 The Chain of Love Letter

Sujin Lee, untitled video
March 24, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I found out about Miranda July first. I believe I picked up a copy of 10 Million Hours a Mile at the Whitney Museum of American Art. I loved the CD and I began to follow Miranda’s work. That’s how I found out about Joanie 4 Jackie. I was 23.

What interested you about the project?
Being on a tape with other women filmmakers/artists, put together by Miranda July.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was a graduate student majoring in studio art. I had been making videos for about a year. I was writing, performing, shooting and editing my own videos.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
This is how I got my video on the Chain of Love Letters tape. I went to see Miranda performing at the Knitting Factory in 2003. I gave her a videotape that had my work after the show and asked if she could look at my work. Miranda said yes. She wrote me an email some time later saying she watched my work and gave me feedback. Then asked if I wanted to put one of my videos on the upcoming chainletter tape. It was such a big encouragement. I am fond of this memory very much.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought and still think that it was such a wonderful project. I wish I had gotten more tapes. I only have the Chain of Love Letter and one of the Co-Star tapes.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Unfortunately, I never attended a screening because I never heard about a screening happening. I wish I had.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
The Sidney Kahn Summer Institute at the Kitchen, Frances Richard, Lynn Book, Sigrid Hackenberg, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. I was seeing a lot of performance art and theater works in NYC.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am an artist making work with text, video and performance and I show my work nationally and internationally.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I would like to see the links to all the participating artists’ websites.

Cyra Polizzi, Reaching Out of Line
March 31, 2013

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I started directing while going to school for theatre acting, environmental studies, and gender/women’s studies. I decided to take an intro to filmmaking class and then sent in the first film I directed to J4J.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time, I liked that it seemed non-commercial and about community and sharing art. I still do. Looking back on it, it’s pretty awesome that I had the opportunity to participate in one of Miranda July’s projects (of course that probably means Miranda July saw my first attempt at filmmaking, which today is incredibly embarrassing).

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I still work in theatre and film, primarily as a theatre actor, and occasionally in other areas, such as directing and writing.

Stephanie Saint Sanchez, The Legend of La Llorona
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was friends with this really cool older woman. She was the kind of cool older women you wish your Mom was but could never be in front of you. She was a crazy artist activist in the 70’s till she had kids and had to get a straight job. She had a daughter a little younger than me that was a budding performance artist so as a treat she sprung for tickets to see you(Miranda July) perform at Diverseworks a Houston arts venue. After the show she went into full obsession mode as did I. Thats when J4J came up. I was 28.

What interested you about the project?
I thought the idea was very clever. I was excited to see what other women were out there making. Especially the kind of women that would take the chance and share their visions. Also it gave me a rush of nostalgia for the anticipatory waiting for something awesome to come in the mail.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I’ve always wanted to make movies. I came from movie lover parents who took me to see everything, even R rated stuff. I had been making mini epics since I was 12. As a teen and beyond I was always working in video stores or movie theaters. Oddly enough I just never put it as an option for myself as a profession back then. I was still just dicking around going to community college like it was not even my own life. Making movies was my idea of a perfect weekend. Get some likeminded freakazoids or hijack a party writing/casting/filming on the fly.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
A high school art weirdo with a penchant for Robert Smith from The Cure and Siouxsie Sioux at heart I modeled my La Llorena ghosty make-up on them. I was very satisfied with the results. I loved inventing and creating the characters’ reality and enjoyed every minute.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was just so excited to get in! It was a much needed validation to kick my ass of the fence and get really going. In retrospect I believed it influenced me not only to pursue cinematic adventures but to have a reverence for sisterly support in the arts.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I meet my first Mentor the great Carlos Calbillo around this time. He was the video documentarian for a Latino literary organization called Nuestra Palabra. My Mother had read about them in the paper and told me to check it out. That’s also where I met Alice Canestaro-Garcia the cool artist who turned me on to You. Carlos taught a film class at the community center which included watching films by Luis Buñuel and working field trips to film re-enactment battles from Texas history. Carlos was a wealth of knowledge from Texas history proper to first account stories of the hip Houston underground scene from his youth. I think that his reverence for local history as well as my involvement with Nuestra Palabra really put the concept of taking a popular Latino ghost story and turning it on it’s head as a way make a claim to my heritage on my terms.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I have been making short films ever since J4J, dipped into multi-media installations, art cars, VHS furniture, and I also play vinyl under the name DJ Esteff. (lachicanalaundrypictures.com) One of the things I’m most proud of is starting Senorita Cinema (senoritacinema.com) the first all Latina film festival in Texas. I was inspired to do this after I screened La Llorena at a film festival in Los Angeles called BHLIFE The Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza (bhlife.org). It was founded by Josephina Lopez the woman who wrote Real Women have Curves. Being around all the Latina filmmakers was invigorating and as per requirement of an artist residency I received from The Lawndale Art Center (lawndaleartcenter.org) I had to host a workshop/artist talk /presentation and I chose to do a screening. That was our first festival and now we are doing number four with sponsors like The Idea Fund a project of The Andy Warhol Foundation. Lastly, this year I have been hired to direct my first feature, a 3D musical about Anna Nicole Smith.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
It would be great to have a sort of bulletin board for networking with each other.

Kelly Sebastian, KASEY
March 13, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
When I was about 19 or 20 I was screening my art videos around New York City and participated in a women’s event at Bluestockings, a feminism & social activism bookstore in the Lower East Side. It was there that I met filmmaker Sarah Jacobson and we quickly became film allies. She told me about Miranda’s Joanie 4 Jackie project and encouraged me to submit something.

What interested you about the project?
This was one of the first opportunities for me to have my work presented outside of NYC. The “original portable video exhibit” – pre-online accessibility! Also, the idea of being a part of a women’s group that was D.I.Y.’ing their own work, just like me and to be able to see what other video artists were making was extremely inspiring. To be included in this “girl gang” of artists/filmmakers felt like what I saw with the Riot Grrrl movement. There was also no boundary to what I could submit, so I chose what I thought was my weirdest video to date.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
At the time of submitting, I thought of myself as an experimental video artist. No boundaries, no formulas, but plenty of emotion. I made something around twenty plus experimental videos. The label “filmmaker” emerged once I began creating documentaries and even though most of my early docs were short in length and most all of them were compiled together on my public access television show “Oh The Ladies,” I still felt that I was now making films. This work then spilled over into Narrative scripts and film projects.

My relationship? Well, that is was an addiction. I had to create. I moved to New York City to paint originally, but once I learned the skills to be able to communicate emotions and tell stories within the medium of video and later films, I was hooked.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I remember the day a stuffed-manila envelope from Joanie 4 Jackie showed up at my apartment. I ripped the package open and found a VHS and printed pamphlet with my project included. I remember taking the tape to my College’s Media Center and hooking up two VCR’s together to rip an additional copy …just in case.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
There were screenings?

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Sarah Jacobson, Eileen Myles, Barbara Kruger, Shepard Fairey, Erase Errata, Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, anything associated with the Riot Grrrl movement, most all of Kill Rock Stars, The Clash, The Ramones, Team Dresch. Also my Film/Video Art college professor Terri Dewhirst was very inspiring to me. She showed my the video work of Sadie Benning, Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, and people like Jeff Krulick.

During this time I was a video store clerk at Kim’s Video on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village – so I pretty much was living in genres as well …Queer, Experimental, Indies, Docs, Cult, Foreign, Classics

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m an actor, writer, director and mom.

I was the lead in last year’s zero-budget, art-house, independent feature film “Forever Into Space,” I’m a Co-Star in the Lesbian Series “SCISSR,” I write/host a Punk/Rock/Metal Radio Show on SiriusXM’s Channel Faction. I have also directed two short narrative films and this year marks the 15th Year Anniversary of my women centric documentary, public access show “Oh The Ladies,” which is being released on YouTube.

I’m a creative … that will always be my case. www.KellySebastian.com

Deborah Stratman, Untied
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was about 35 I guess. I can’t remember if I found out about it from Vanessa Renwick or Astria Suparak. Both superstars of the independent film scene.

What interested you about the project?
Radicalizing access to video visions.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes. I loved making movies. I still do.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time I thought it was quirky, curious, DIY. In retrospect, it seems more radical and inventive in the way it circumvented normal distribution schemes, and the extremely refreshing mix of long-time makers with first time makers and everything in between.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I teach filmmaking to make money. I make films + art to spend money. Also, I teach because it’s great to work around people who are figuring out the world and themselves and their art. It’s good that so many things are hard (or impossible) to get to the bottom of. And it’s good to keep looking.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Links to filmmakers’ sites. www.pythagorasfilm.com

2004 The Newborn Chainletter

Sarah Hanssen, Sarah Nye
March 14, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I don’t know! I think a friend, Jackie Goss, told me about it.

What interested you about the project?
Duh! Ladies making movies!

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I had finished my MFA in experimental film and video but I really hadn’t exhibited my films much.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I was teaching in Ohio last year and a student who was really into Miranda’s work some how found out that I was on this chainletter video and he was super excited to see it. Alas, I only have the old VHS tapes and no one could watch it on that format so our hands were tied.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was an honor and something special to be part of but now I realize that it was even more special than I knew. No one has kept that flame alive today. You are making me miss good old fashioned mail and VHS tapes!

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I teach filmmaking!

Joanne Nucho, Gigi (from 9 to 5)
March 14, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I found out about Joanie 4 Jackie when I was 17 or 18 and in high school. 1996 or 1997. It was called Big Miss Moviola back then.

What interested you about the project?
I was interested in the idea of creating this alternative network where filmmakers could share their films with each other. This was, of course, before vimeo or youtube, and the idea was really interesting to me, as I was already making short videos with my friends as a teenager. I was excited about the prospect of sharing them with other people and watching the films that they made without access to expensive equipment.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I did consider myself a filmmaker at that time (and I still do). At the time I participated, I had graduated from NYU and had been working with 16mm film and video for a few years. I had just started editing television shows professionally.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
The film was basically my senior thesis project. I was really into musicals and situationists both, and was really excited to make something absurd and fun, and sort of along the lines of Vera Chytilova’s “Daisies.” I didn’t come close to the brilliance of “Daisies,” but I had such a great time making this film with the help of my friend, musician Kelly Kawar, who wrote all of the music, and my friends who did all the singing. The star, Gina Young, is an amazing musician too and she appeared in many of my student films at NYU.

One thing I remember very clearly about the shoot was the moment when I said “action” and the dancers started doing their choreographed dance and everything was happening. It was almost overwhelming how crazy it felt to have been orchestrating this whole scene, to have imagined something and then gotten all of these people to participate in staging it! Lots of fun and a very positive experience.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was a wonderful and much needed space for people to share their work. In retrospect, I still think it’s wonderful and I wish that something like this existed in an online format. There seems to be so much space for sharing your work via the internet and the potential seems unlimited. And yet… most of what is available to “independent” filmmakers is pretty limited in terms of who actually has access and what kinds of films are screened.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I never had the opportunity to attend a screening, unfortunately.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
In 2004, I felt pretty inspired by my friends who were making films and videos, or editing, or making music for films and videos. I’m still inspired by people who make amazing, challenging work that doesn’t fit neatly into a commercial genre. I also admire those friends of mine who have achieved great commercial success and maintained their integrity.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am still involved in filmmaking and post-production, but I am also an anthropologist. I was always much more interested in documentary film, and was drawn to ethnographic filmmaking techniques mainly because of the serious attention given to time, to allowing things to unfold over time and not feeling the need to script or drive action. So I decided to pursue my PhD in Anthropology, which I am finishing up now. I just received a grant to establish a filmmaking workshop for young women in Lebanon where I conducted my PhD research. Learning how to use a video camera and edit my own movies was a very formative experience in my life. I look forward to sharing that with my students. I hope to produce a documentary of the workshop and the films that emerge from it.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I think it would be great to see more of these films online.

2005 The Frozen Chainletter

Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe, La Blanchisseuse
February 23, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I don’t remember how I heard about it, but it was probably an email or something online. I’m not sure when that was but I’d have been 50 when I participated.

What interested you about the project?
I’ve always liked projects that get off the ground more by collective enthusiasm and inspiration than by institutional support. Plus, I love Miranda July’s work in general, always.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I had begun designing websites at the time but yes, I still considered myself a filmmaker/media artist. My relationship to making movies was one of love.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
I filmed myself ironing at the Experimental Television Center and there turned the footage into a moving impressionist image of a laundress. Then my friend Tony Moore composed music for it. One of the pieces is called “Man’s Shirt”. That may be the only piece of music called “Man’s Shirt”.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was really impressed. Now, I feel grateful to have been part of something that gathered together so much energy from so many people. My hat’s off to all the curators, and especially to Miranda July.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I don’t think I saw a screening.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was involved with the Filmmakers’ Coop at the time, working with a great group of people on the board — MM Serra, Anne Hanavan, Lynne Sachs, Ghen Dennis, Bill Morrison, Bradley Eros, Marie Losier, John Mhiripiri, Joel Schlemowitz, Grahame Weinbren, Michael Gitlin and Donna Cameron. The collective energy of creative people working together to make more (and unconventional) opportunities for films to be seen was very inspiring.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
Designing websites has kind of taken over my life, though I do get some sleep.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I like everything there. I see some films have links to “Watch »” and think it would be great if there were more such links if the works are available online somewhere.

2006 Girafferator: A Chainletter

Charlotte Greville, Birthday Dad
March 18, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I went to Bard! Professor Jackie Goss asked me to help her with this project Joanie for Jackie my sophomore year 2003 (so I was 20 I think). We gathered submissions, complied chainletter tapes and held screening. I was part of the Bard J4J club till I graduated in 2006.

What interested you about the project?
I loved it. It was magic that was completely real but still very much seemed like magic to me.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was a film major at Bard. I made a lot of films. J4J made me feel like a I was part of something. It gave me confidence in what I was doing. I need to make things. Right now its objects not films. I think film will be something I come back to. I can still feel it in me.

We would screen the new and old chainletters at Bard. I made silk screens T-shirts, bandanas and bags with J4J logos I came up with. My favorite one was a little Shirly Temple looking girl leaning back on a huge VHS bigger than her. I got mixed up and if you looked closely it read Joanie for Fackie not Joanie for Jackie. The cursive J flipped to an F at some point in my process but no one noticed. shhhh We would sell them at J4J screenings at Anthology in NYC. The money went to new chainletters and I think a desk for our office at Bard. I can remember building the desk. J4J was a big part of Bard for me. I loved being part of it.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
Professor Jackie Goss got me involved in J4J at Bard. She is an amazing person, teacher and advisor. Thanks to J4J I would be in her office a lot.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I would drive to NYC from Bard with other J4J members to hold screenings at Anthology film archive. We would do a little explanation of the project and let it roll. After the screening we would sell some J4J stuff we made. We met very interesting people who all loved J4J.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I think I watched close to every video on every chainletter we had at Bard. I would take them home two at a time. I had a TV with a VHS at the foot of my bed in a cluttered room. I was also watching a lot film in my classes. A LOT of avant grade film from the 60s and 70s.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a designer.
charlottegreville.com

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
It looks great. Thank you for working so hard on this project. J4J is dearly loved.

Cat Tyc, Speed Freaks Do Bach
March 14, 2014

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I think I found about Joanie 4 Jackie just from reading about Miranda July in BUST magazine. I was in my early 20’s.

In the back of my mind, I think Joanie 4 Jackie was always bookmarked for whenever the time came around for that video that was yet to be made so I was always staying abreast of it in interviews with Miranda to make sure it was still there when I was ready.

What interested you about the project?
I liked that it was taking on the same perspective that Riot Grrl originally took with women in music, which was that if it felt like there was a community of girls just figuring it out and wanting to see other videos by girls (like me!) then that would be enough incentive to make the steps to just try something and see what would come of it.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
At that time, I felt like I was learning how to be a video artist. I have always been obsessed with film and studied theater and writing in school. At the time, I was making zines of my poetry but I was feeling too emotionally exposed by writing and reading my words out publicly. Video felt like a way to express the things I wanted to express with some emotional barrier. I had a text I wanted to try articulating through filming dancers in the state of rehearsal.

It felt like a metaphor for “practicing” which was what I was doing by learning how to shoot with a video camera I was borrowing from my day job and learning how to edit in iMovie.

I also had a personal connection to this material because I was a dancer as a child before turning to acting so I felt like I could relate to the physicality of learning and getting that into your body.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
My only anecdote was that the chainletter DVD was the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Portland, Oregon from New York for a few years. I had decided to go to this mystical land where women and girls made art all day to see what what I could do there. It felt appropriate that my first practice would come to me embraced by this mysterious cloud of girls who got it, right at the moment I was at this place trying to figure out what the next step would be.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I think Joanie 4 Jackie was/is awesome!

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Riot Grrl, Le Tigre, Eileen Myles’ “Cool For You.”

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I now live in Brooklyn, NY and am currently making an interactive documentary about the sustainable fashion movement to educate and empower the everyday consumer about textile responsibility. I have directed music videos that have screened on MTVu and LOGO’s NewNowNext. In 2009, I adapted, directed, produced and edited a short narrative “Umbrella” that has gone on to screen in galleries & festivals in Seattle, Portland and New York City, Berlin and London. In 2012, I presented a solo screening of early video work at the Microscope Gallery in Bushwick. I am a member of New York Women in Film and Television as well as the Brooklyn Filmmaker’s Collective.

Charlotte Greville, Birthday Dad

What interested you about the project?
I loved it. It was magic that was completely real but still very much seemed like magic to me.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I loved receiving the new videos. Opening the hand made/drawn/designed/collaged packages was its own tiny video Christmas. Women of all ages would send their video/films by mail to us. Jackie would collect them till we had 7 or 8. Then we would all gather in the film department and watch the new submissions. They were from everywhere and all very unique and special. I can remember brain storming ideas for the number cues/intervals between videos. The jewelry box with the spinning ballerina! Not my idea but I helped film and edit and my hand might be opening the box a few times. Then we would send out 10 VHS tapes to everyone who was on the chainletter. We would screen the new and old chainletters at Bard. I made silk screen T-shirts, bandanas and bags with J4J logos I came up with. My favorite one was a little Shirley Temple looking girl leaning back on a huge VHS bigger than her. I got mixed up and if you looked closely it read Joanie for Fackie not Joanie for Jackie. The cursive J flipped to an F at some point in my process but no one noticed. Shhhh. We would sell them at J4J screenings at Anthology in NYC. The money went to new chainletters and I think a desk for our office at Bard. I can remember building the desk. J4J was a big part of Bard for me. I loved being part of it.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a designer: charlottegreville.com

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
It looks great. Thank you for working so hard on this project. J4J is dearly loved.

2007 Transformer Chainletter

Corrie Siegel, Couperin
March 24, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I think I was 19 or 20. Another student at Bard college that I thought was too cool to be my friend suggested I be a part of this mysterious chainletter/festival.

What interested you about the project?
It was the first time that I shared a film I had made within a semi public forum. I also felt like I had somehow gained entrance to this secret club of creators.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
This was one of the first “art films” I had made.. it started out as a joking gesture, but it seemed like something needed to communicate. I did not even know how to edit titles with iMovie, or how to even load the video onto any editing program, someone had to show me how to do that.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I drew on my hand to make it look like a face. I had red marker stain on my skin for at least a week afterward.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
It made me feel powerful, like my vision was worth presenting, and I also loved the intimacy of sharing the work in this public/ private way. I feel really lucky to have had that experience, and to continue to have that experience in a way.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Bard College, my friends, sleepless nights writing philosophy essays and wandering like a crazy person in the woods, thinking a lot about the possibility of earnestly and inventively expressing my truth.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m an artist, currently receiving a grant through a fellowship. I also operate a small artist run space with two friends and manage the education and family programs for a museum. I have been making many two minute films that I post on a Vimeo page when I can remember.

Co-Star Filmmakers/Curators:

1998 Joanie 4 Jackie 4Ever

Zoey Kroll, The Delta, Her Perversions on The Underwater Chainletter, Electronic Ballet on Silver Chainletter
March 14, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Miranda told us about the video chainletter when she was performing at Epicenter, a punk community space on Valencia Street and 16th in San Francisco. Ryder Cooley and I were both 26 at the time, just coming into our queerness, and excited about making things together.

What interested you about the project?
We were really into making and exchanging zines. We were late-bloomers in terms of riot grrrl zine-making, but the rawness and intimate exchanges of writing and art spoke to us. Making a video and putting it in the mail for a collaborative chain letter seemed super fun, and an extension of the zine exchanges. I loved the idea of being connected to girls/women who were making things in other parts of the country. And it meant a lot that Miranda was putting it all together, that someone thought this was a worthwhile connection to make.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I didn’t identify as a filmmaker. I was into making art as a way to engage with the world and find my place in it. Ryder and I, as Daughters of Houdini, made some films as part of our life-art performance collaboration. The experience of going on a road trip and filming our adventures was usually the most exciting part of the process for me. When the films got screened, it was an extension of the adventure, an invitation to enter our intimate world of girl secrets and magical places and thoughts, where the world was a little different and more crazy than everyone pretended it to be.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
The Delta: Ryder, Lissa Ivy and I on a day trip to the Delta; we happen upon a landscape with levy roads cracked upon by flooding. The driving ends (we can’t pass through) and the movie begins.
Her Perversions: Adventures at Ore Hot Springs and ongoing research into hysteria and medical history. Our Freud and Charcot obsession at its height.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I knew Miranda was in her apartment duplicating all these videos from one VCR to another, so it seemed like we were all in this thing together, finding our voice and deciding that our voices mattered. In retrospect, having our work included in the tapes and then seeing these tapes play throughout the world validated us as culture makers and shapers.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I think we went to one of the screenings at ATA, Artists’ Television Access. We would also show the movies at our parties.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was working at The LAB, a nonprofit arts organization. I met Ryder there at a free electronic sound workshop for women, taught by Pamela Z. I found my way to the Lab through publications I read a few years earlier: Angry Women (V.Vale, Andrea Juno at Re/Search Publications), and High Risk (Amy Scholder, Ira Silverberg). Once I discovered zines, I would pore over Factsheet Five to learn about zines across the country, and find people to trade comics, zines, and chapbooks with.

I was inspired by the many free art events and gatherings happening in San Francisco which encouraged open participation by women and queers: Sister Spit, organized by Michelle Tea, and K’vetch, by Tara Jepson and Lynn Breedlove. Many inspiring women encouraged me to make art and write: Margaret Tedesco (who now does [2nd floor projects]) and Lauren Hewitt (who gave us an art residency at the Jon Sims Center).

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am engaged with participatory art and culture projects, and I do environmental work that explores urban sustainability and biodiversity. Recent projects include Hayes Valley Farm, a community art and permaculture project (hayesvalleyfarm.org) and Pocket Seed Library, a seed saving and picnic advocacy project. I am not specifically involved in filmmaking, but I am actively engaged with art, writing, and multimedia in my community collaborations.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
It would be cool to have photos/links to current projects J4J participants are doing, and a list of participatory projects that people can engage with today.

Diana Oliver, Weddings From My Window
March 1, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
In my 30’s I studied video production and created a video of the wedding processions that came to the park across the street from where I lived in New York. At the time I was in an abusive relationship, the narrative of the piece against the pageantry of all these weddings was the bases of my story.

What interested you about the project?
It was wonderful to share this video with the project and have it be seen.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
At the time, I was not a filmmaker, I was an artist to enjoyed telling moving stories through film.
This film represented a very deep personal chapter in my life.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Through the years I have not shared this video it was in a format that wasn’t adaptable to most VCRs. My life changed after this and film making changed to only short music video projects.
I once shared this video with a women who was struggling with her own abusive relationship. After seeing the film she hugged me and thanked me for sharing. It showed her that there was life to be lived after an abusive relationship.
It was one of the most rewarding moments in my artistic career.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I am please to see that the chain letter went on to include many women and many points of view. I am honored to have been a part of this.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was studying at Global Video Productions in SoHo NY

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a writer, artist, designer. Owner of a record label. Mother.

C. Ryder (formerly Carolyn) Cooley
The Delta, Her Perversions on The Underwater Chainletter, Electronic Ballet on Silver Chainletter, Bird Cage Wedding Cake on The Velvet Chainletter
March 14, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I saw Miranda perform at Epicenter on Valencia Street in San Francisco, maybe it was a QTIP event (Queers Together in Punkness). I think that’s where we first met. Anyhow, I liked Miranda’s performance, she had two microphones and two chairs that she stood on, as i recall. We swapped zines afterward and voila. My collaboration with Zoey as Daughters of Houdini revolved around concocting lots of gatherings, adventures, projects and performances, so we all started hanging out, Miranda, Zoey and I. My friendship with Miranda deepened through letters and visits between San Francisco and Portland. One time she sent me a tutu in the mail which I wore in the Electronic Ballet. I was in my mid twenties.

What interested you about the project?
oh, well, J4J was an extension of the zine/riot grrrl movement. For me, the project was about zines coming to life through video. It was a chain letter, which was this dorky thing that we all did as kids, so there was a playful and nerdy aspect to it, but it was also creative and artistic, very clever. I mean, zines were already part of the underground music movement, but Moviola introduced a new layer – media. So many women were making videos in the 90’s, the medium was becoming more accessible and it felt radical for us to be taking the lens by storm and working with “technology”. It felt empowering for us to turn the lens on ourselves and be on both sides of the camera, to have that control. A lot of the video work being made by women at the time, especially for the chain-letters, was intimate and diaristic, a departure from the more conventional and masculine stuff that was out there. At the time it felt cool and punk-rock and feminist to be working in video. It was also good to feel connected with the other filmmakers and to feel like we were part of a movement.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I never really identified as a filmmaker. I studied filmmaking while I was in art school, but after making a few films and sending them off to festivals, I realized that I liked live events and exchanges more than static screenings, or sitting at home watching videos. I still work with video and incorporate it into performances and installations though.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
The Delta was a Daughters of Houdini adventure into the Sacramento Valley with our friend and collaborator, Lissa Ivy. We hit the road with costumes and a super 8 camera, and my accordion which I took everywhere, but we didn’t know there had been severe flooding. Some of the roads were washed out and it looked quite dramatic. When we got back to San Francisco we all got on an electric horse that was parked outside a five and dime shop near my apartment, so that was the grand finale of our filmic adventure.

The electronic ballet was shot at a hot springs north of San Francisco, and Her Perversions was shot at the same hot springs, but it was two separate trips. Daughters of Houdini were interested in women, hysteria, and the Water Cure movement, so that gave us an excuse to go to as many hot springs as possible!

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
J4J seemed like a fun and clever idea. The project seemed especially profound for people who were isolated geographically, as artist makers and as queers. J4J provided a community, an audience, a platform and a connection point.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I think there was a screening at ATA in San Francisco. Then, years later, Vanessa Haroutunian found me in Hudson NY. She was a Bard student working on the J4J archives and finishing a documentary about the project, so there was a second wind with some screenings that Vanessa organized in the Hudson area.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Epicenter and QTIP in San Francisco, ATA (Artists TV Access), Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts (a queer non-profit performance and rehearsal space/center), the SF Public Library where I worked, Southern Exposure Gallery, The Lab Gallery and just about every thrift store between San Francisco and Seattle…plus the zine movement and Riot Girrl

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m an inter-disciplinary artist, musician and performer (rydercooley.com). I still make videos and incorporate moving imagery into a lot of my work. I play in an ethereal gothic-folk band called Dust Bowl Faeries (dustbowlfaeries.com). I also work with animals, both living and dead.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Photos of then and now would be fun, and links to current projects by J4J filmmakers.

2000 I Saw Bones

Eva Aridjis, Taxidermy: The Art of Imitating Life
October 1, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was contacted by the curators after my short film screened at Sundance in 1999. I was 24 or 25 at the time.

What interested you about the project?
The quality of the films included. They were all interesting, edgy and original. And they were all made by women! And I was also a fan of Miranda July’s work, so her involvement was an additional attraction.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I considered myself a budding filmmaker at that time. I was just finishing film school (an MFA at NYU) and my short “Taxidermy: The Art of Imitating Life” was in fact a student film. So at the time I had made several short films but I hadn’t made a feature yet.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was a great collection of work and I was honored to be included. In retrospect I feel the same!

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I was and have always been inspired by the short films of Man Ray, Maya Deren, Luis Buñuel and Kenneth Anger. In terms of more contemporary short/experimental film and video makers I was inspired by Miranda July, Nick Zedd, Bruce Conner, Bill Viola, Laurie Anderson, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Mike Kelley and many others.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am still a filmmaker but I make more traditional narrative and documentary features now. I have made three documentary features- Children of the Street, Saint Death, Chuy, The Wolf Man, and two narrative features- The Favor and The Blue Eyes. My next narrative feature will be produced by Vice Films and is titled Animalia.

Ximena Cuevas, Hawai
September 29, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Rita Gonzalez curated the tape, she chose my video “Hawai” for it, I think framed with the other works gets a very disturbing tone.

What interested you about the project?
Around that time I saw for the first time Miranda July performing, it was “Love Diamond” in Cinematexas, it was one of the most powerful things I have seen, I just couldn’t move from the chair, it was as poetic as terrifying, as sweet as painful. So in addition to her personal work I found the Big Miss Moviola project super brilliant, to put together as an independent artist all these female voices was just a treasure.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes, I was already a video artist working with the idea of the fragility of such a thing named “reality”, Hawai was part of a series about creating fictions of life.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
I used to have my camera with me all the time, the rule of game was in a single day to make life into fictional snapshots. The women in Hawai were dancing in a wedding and I liked the idea of them transported to Hawai.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I think I answered that in the previous question about the project. I still think it is a treasure.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
No, I just had some of them in VHS tapes, something I really liked, I remember watching them in bed, so it was very intimate.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
In Mexico there wasn’t a video art or independent filmmaking culture at the time, the few of us were working like in islands. I was a lonesome artist, very avid to discover people working out of the mainstream. There was a very strong energy that stimulated me a lot, I was fascinated with artists like, as I said before, Miranda July, and also Sadie Benning, Lourdes Portillo, Naomi Uman, Sophie Calle, Kathy High and in Mexico Teresa Margolles (who is also as Semefo in the “I saw bones” tape), Silvia Gruner, Sarah Minter, women working from a very passionated privacy, inventing their own language. On the other hand I was going through the film classics, the melodrama, the Italian neorealism, the German expressionists, Buster Keaton and popular culture. And in art the Renaissance artists, and Goya, Rembrandt. I was very hungry. Reading Ionesco and listening Alberta Hunter.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am still making videos but with no camera, in an ecology sense I work with recycling materials, also editing other things for a living, adult life steals a lot of time, but I am still fully passionated of moving images. I also have a conservation sea turtle project. We are all living in such a dark moment of humanity that I want a life of love and peace and awareness.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I want to see all the volumes of Big Miss Moviola.

2000 Some Kind of Loving

Stephanie Barber, pornfilm
February 23, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I’m not sure if Astria or Miranda asked to share this short film on the Some Kind of Loving Tape.

What interested you about the project?
I like the women that were organizing the tape.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes, I was a filmmaker working in 16mm film.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I did not know the history of the project before the Some Kind of Loving tape came out and now I think it seems like an extraordinary, generous project, both the curated tapes and the chain letter-esque tapes.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
Filmmaker.

Jane Gang, Fine Lines
February 25, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Astria Suparak, the curator, asked me. She had seen Fine Lines and some of my other S8 films. I had brought back the concept of running a low budget, short film nite for the local’s entertainment on the L.E.S. in 1996. I started the Pink Pony Film Nites out of the Pink Pony Café next door to Max Fish on Ludlow St, NYC. It was a scene that had blossomed back in London in the mid 90s with film nites around town above pubs, in old funeral homes etc. I moved back to NYC in 1996, my contemporaries were of the E.Village 80s scene: Artists, musicians and original Grafitti kats like Futura and Sharp. I worked in the Café and began the monthly movie nite. First honoring some friends, the original filmmakers from the Cinema of Transgression: Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Beth B, Nick Zedd and of course, Richard Kern among others. It was a great time in the history of the cutting edge creativity of Downtown New York back in the 90s and noughties. Astria at the time was a student at Pratt and an active participant in the booming Low-budget movie scene that my Pink Pony Film Nites had resuscitated. There was of course Anthology film Achives, the film Coop and Millennium film workshop along with a few movie projections in clubs. As video had arrived and made filmmaking easier, cheaper and way more accessible to many more people, the momentum of individual storytelling through low-budget film and video was affordable, vibrant and kicking off. As in London, within a year other venues downtown and in Brooklyn had their own movie nites, and the scene caught the attention of The New York Times etc. It was at the beginning of the time of the rise of the International Film Festival circuit.

What interested you about the project?
Astria was way more of an academic than myself, with all the language and knowledge of the contemporary arts. She was also completely passionate, open-minded, driven and devoted to carry individual, erratic artistic subversive visions into the lives of students, educational institutions and the wider public. She was back then a rare, evolved Being mingling in the mess that is the cauldron of cutting-edge talent in progress. As a curator and Co-Star she had the Package in mind. Some Kind of Loving is a spillage of silver mercury balls on a tabletop: Whole and fragile, difficult to contain. Astria and Miranda have managed to do just that. I loved the idea too, the whole of the Joanie4Jackie & Miss Moviola projects.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I made my first S8 ‘Every Master Taught a Different Way’ while at The Slade School of Art, 1981. I was at Art School when tutors would say ‘stick to one medium’ And this old and stuffy School frowned upon a (Female?) painter who went off and submerged herself in every aspect of movie making: Writing, directing, editing, drawn animation sections, prop & costume making, acting along with my friends, finding the right music scores and musicians etc It was a tepid tale of Harlequin, 25 minutes long and I completely misjudged how to communicate the storyline. It was great fun to make and took a long time and went down like a lead balloon. In 1989 I started writing for short S8 films again and by 2001 I had completed 8 with one half finished. ‘Every Master…’ got cut up and became the visuals for Inside Out 1992. (An experimental, narrative, specifically about insanity: The mental madness.). Film making for me has always been about engaging with fellow creative folk who bring their own element to the finished product. It’s my foray into 3D after painting. I don’t make sculpture I make movies.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Fine Lines became my most popular S8 film on the international short film and video-poem circuit, 1998 –2001. I wrote most of it on a train from London to Amsterdam, I had set off the go see a Vermeer exhibition (the type of life-style I’m still aiming for I realized I was in fact writing two separate stories, the other became ‘Inside Out’. I’d been shooting film for another film at the time and one or two Kodak reels came back from the lab completely black. So I scratched it as the visual for Fine Lines. This was my fastest and easiest film I’ve made. I feel a little embarrassed or ashamed that its about child abuse and there’s one line that still jars off-key to me, other than that I get a huge kick out of writing and film making. And I am proud of my work. I won’t let any of it out the door unless its shoes are polished.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
We were all so busy with our own projects and there’s always so much more to do. I really appreciated back then as I do now anyone taking the time to include my work in their project, carrying it forth into a dialogue within the context of the wider world. Sadly I never got as involved as I would’ve liked along the way but I am truly grateful to all the work and effort that Astria and Miranda (and whoever else was and is involved) have put into this project. I love being honored alongside these strong fellow filmmakers. Never one to like the label ‘Feminist’ or ‘Woman Filmmaker’ etc it is a sad fact that we are marginalized (It only took me 54 years to face that one!) So for all the ladies who recognized that and paved the way before me, I thank you!

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I am yet to attend a screening.(Yes, I did write that in the hope I will one day) I always felt a tinge of green when Astria would send me press from the tour. I LOVE going on tour! I’m sure it was a lot of fun.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I think I wrote about some inspirations above: The downtown NYC vibe was an overflow of creativity. I was still in touch with the Underground Film movement in London, The Exploding Cinema and Omsk etc and I invited the London Underground to The Big Pond Film Fest a three-day event at the Pink Pony. I was very involved in the short film and Underground film scene up till 2003. I curated quite a few film shows for the New York Underground Film Festival, The NY Lesbian & Gay film Festival, I did the opening film program for Sensation exhibition (YBAs at The Brooklyn Museum), The Toronto Short Film Festive, I was on The Mix Festival committee, I won the Kodak Award for ‘Down The Tube’ in 1998, a couple of other awards from Austin Texas and I also curated 2 film shows for The Yale Center for British Art, the first as part of Patrick Caulfield exhibition 1999 and in 2000 a 4 leg extravaganza: The Parson’s Nose, consisting of British short film, music (Jim Thirwell & Gensis P.Orridge) Performance (which I wrote & directed)With English Kills, World Famous B*B, Angel 11:11 & Marianna Ellenberg. I took the American Film-makers over to The London Underground film Festival for 2/3 years. It was all a lot of fun. I stopped, closed my door and went back to painting full time. In a cornball fashion I find inspiration everywhere. I could fill a book with one sentence..in fact I did once. ( a little Love 4 Stanley Kubrick)

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am very involved in writing at present. I am writing ‘Pianos From Heaven:“Look Up!” which will have the first three condensed Chapters published in The Canyon News within the next 2 months. I have just completed a condensed Saga, also published in The Canyon News (CanyonNews90210) a Los Angeles local paper, online and in print that covers the Hills from Malibu to Los Feliz. ‘The Clean Up Saga.’(Parts 1 – 11) Dec 2014-Dec 2015. Before this project, which I aim to turn into film either for TV or movies I was writing drafts for an animation project and a TV show as well as painting and exhibiting. www.janegang.com I have a street wear label Cash Only: www.cashonlyapparel.com And I am lucky to have my wonderful fun and brilliant son, Boulevard who is a huge and totally magical inspiration. The Clean Up Saga is a new form of cross-genre writing from SiFi through paranormal to comedy. Set in the past, present and future (as are my paintings). Semi autobiographical, I have referenced my Super 8 film making days throughout. To get this spectacular news about the Getty Research Institute Gift from Miranda July comes with a potent air of 360degree synchronicity into my life. I thank all of you for making this possible, especially Astria.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
The site looks terrific.

Astria Suparak, curator
March 25, 2014

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
From one of Miranda July’s performances, either at the Los Angeles Riot Grrrl Convention in 1995 (I was 17 and part of that RG chapter) or in 1997 at Dumba in Brooklyn.

What interested you about the project?
Joanie 4 Jackie created a network that could be both wide-reaching and intimate for a demographic often ignored: females interested in making and seeing movies outside of mainstream conventions. The open call nature leveled the playing field and the chainletter format added an element of unpredictability for both participants and viewers. There wasn’t anything like it at the time.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was a college student and considered myself an artist who dabbled in filmmaking, and I ran a weekly screening series of independent and experimental media at Pratt Institute. Much of my programming supported artists who were young, female, queer, of color, and/or emerging. I set up two events with Miranda July and Big Miss Moviola in New York, in November 1998 and March 2000.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I finished working on the Some Kind of Loving tape and poster a few weeks after graduating from college, working on borrowed computers in short-term sublets. Looking back on that time, I really appreciate how Miranda trusted and encouraged me to curate the tape as I wished. The video duplication company stopped production on the tape when they realized it contained sexual imagery, and Miranda just switched companies rather than asking me or the artists to make changes or compromise our visions. It wasn’t even a question for her – she simply found another option to make it happen and moved quickly.

Miranda asked for photos of myself and the artists, to use in the poster and on the J4J website. I’d never done a photoshoot before. My friend Nell and I bought disposable cameras from a pharmacy and snuck into the natural history museum in Albany, NY. We were kicked out after being caught climbing around the dioramas, but not before Nell took the photo with the taxidermied wildcats behind me, which appears on the tape’s poster insert.

I briefly travelled with curated film programs before Miranda’s and my J4J / Some Kind of Loving tour together in 2000. And afterwards, I toured frequently for several years, helping to distribute and promote works not widely available and to strengthen an international community of microcinemas and alternative art spaces. This was all before YouTube, Vimeo, and fast internet – when access to these voices and visions was dependent upon someone physically bringing the work to different cities, sometimes with a suitcase full of film reels and video tapes.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
The first J4J screening I went to was at Dumba in Brooklyn (1997), and the movie made on the spot by attendees was such an unexpected way to incorporate the audience into what they were seeing on the screen, to turn passive watchers into active makers, and a great way to build excitement throughout the evening. The prompt was something like, “Nobody knows that I can…”, and anyone could privately videotape themselves responding to it in a separate space from the screening room.

In 2000 we toured the West Coast with selections of the Some Kind of Loving Co-Star Tape and Miranda’s performance in progress, The Swan Tool. It was the first time I had toured with other people and visited many of those places, and I had stage fright in front of hundreds of people at the grand, balconied Capitol Theater in Olympia.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Performance-based video art, avant-garde cinema, Fluxus, Conceptual Art, Riot Grrrl, Queercore, Andrea Grover and Aurora Picture Show, Ed Halter and the New York Underground Film Festival, Scott Miller Berry and Dumba, M.M. Serra and the Film-makers’ Cooperative, Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, Ocularis, Anthology Film Archives, all the filmmakers in the Some Kind of Loving tape, artists like Valie Export, Adrian Piper, Mike Kelley, Kirsten Stoltmann, Julie Murray, Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Sadie Benning, and friends Koen Holtkamp, Nell Brady and Jennifer Sullivan.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’ve curated for art spaces and festivals, producing exhibitions, projects, events, and publications. I’m now working as an artist and independent curator. It’s not dissimilar to what I was doing with the screening series in college and with Some Kind of Loving – expanding notions of art and culture, exploring ideas, supporting artists and politics I feel passionate about, showcasing unique and underrepresented perspectives, and bringing different groups of people together.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Looks like you already have everything on the site. Maybe a list of past screenings?

Supporters

Julia Bryan-Wilson, helper/supporter/friend/co-manager of sorts for a spell
March 21, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I found out about J4J when I met Miranda at a video show I was co-curating with my friend Jon Raymond at the Candyass Record warehouse in 1995. Miranda was there to spread the word about what was then called Big Miss Moviola. We were both 22 years old and living in Portland, Oregon. We became friends through our shared passions: feminism, image-making, politics, class and race critiques, poundcake with vanilla ice cream, and thrift-store fashion. I helped out with J4J until about 1997– the email address on some of those early posters is my email address, because I had a day job with a computer.

What interested you about the project?
Everything about this project was compelling to me, especially its inventive rethinking about how art might circulate, and about how that circulation might feed into larger conversations about gendered access, control, and power. It was so much more than an alternative video distribution system–though it was that, too–it was also a way to create an audience, to summon together communities of female makers and watchers.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Sort of yes and sort of no. I had made many short videos with friends in my public arts high school and beyond, but I never took myself very seriously in that regard; I was much more invested in being a writer. Increasingly I stopped identifying as an artist as I saw myself more as an advocate; I was starting to write art criticism and curate small shows, and at the time those felt like quite distinct positions. Today I might understand things more flexibly, but c. 1995-1997 my energy was focused on writing and organizing. But I was interested intellectually in what seemed to me to be the critically important questions raised by film and independent video, not least feminist theorizations of the gaze and the activist potential of HIV/AIDS video. I had studied queer film and video in college (under the guidance of faculty like Patricia White and Alex Juhasz), and I was excited to put theory into practice, so to speak, in my work with J4J and in my discussions with Miranda.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
Oh so very many! Miranda and I spent so many hours talking about the videos that came in (slowly at first, and then in great inspiring rushes), and trying to scheme getting funding to sustain or even expand the project. I have very vivid memories of accompanying Miranda to a screening at a high school in Vancouver, Washington and having breakfast cereal as the official afternoon snack, which made perfect sense at the time.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time, J4J was my best friend’s totally amazing art project that had the potential to be a kind of activist tool. It felt very natural for me to participate in it when I lived in Portland, since it resonated with so many things I was already interested in. In retrospect I can see that J4J also played a crucial role in my own formation as a feminist scholar concerned with alternative modes of artistic production and distribution.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I attended many screenings, in New York at the Clit Club (am I right that it was there?), in Olympia, WA, in Portland, and other places. Here my memory gets a little vague but I recall that Miranda would always make a participatory video “Nobody Every Told Me…”, in which audience members would complete that phrase, and then their confessions were shown as part of the screening. People consistently said such surprising and raw and moving things.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
New queer cinema and HIV/AIDS documentaries was hugely inspiring to me, as were feminist artists like Ida Applebroog and Coco Fusco. I read a lot of novels by people such as Clarice Lispector which I’d check out from the Portland public library and carry home on the bus in huge tote bags. I was much less focused on the so-called riot grrrl scene than some others my age in Portland, but I did spend some time watching music performed by friends who were in bands.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am an associate professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of California, Berkeley. I still think about questions of feminist film and video— and independent practices and scrappy do-it-yourself projects— in my teaching and research.

Sarah Cook, curator, “Broadcast Yourself: Artists’ interventions into television”
June 14, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I recall an email from Miranda asking for advice about a legal letter she had received concerning her use of the term Moviola, when the project was called Big Miss Moviola; at the time what is now FACT in Liverpool was also still referred to as Moviola – it started in 1985 as Merseyside Moviola launched by Josie Barnard and Lisa Haskel, and became FACT in 1997.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a curator of media art and other interdisciplinary art activities. I saw the Joanie 4 Jackie archive displayed first at Yerba Buena though was aware of the project before then (I studied at Bard where the J4J archive was located). I included the project in the exhibition ‘Broadcast Yourself: Artists’ interventions into television’ which I co-curated for the AV Festival in Newcastle and Cornerhouse in Manchester in 2008. At the time I was researching how artists had created platforms for self-broadcasting, before the YouTube age we live in now. J4J remains a key piece of this history. In 2008 it was unclear how the archive was to be looked after long-term and I felt that including the work in the exhibition – through documentation of all of the posters of every edition of the tapes, and a screening copy of the co-star tape – was important to keep visibility of the project internationally, and to introduce it others who didn’t know of it.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
An anotated history!

Alex Juhasz, programmer
February 25, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was in my early 30s, and I don’t actually remember how I heard about it. But I brought Miranda to Pitzer to show the series and talk about it.

What interested you about the project?
As an AIDS video activist and scholar at the time, I was making and thinking about artistic/activist/personal uses of video too. J-4-J’s idea for a distribution platform for women and girl’s work was connected to ideas and actions we were taking as AIDS activists/queers/feminists who were also committed to empowering people/movements through low-end people-made video production and distribution. J-4-J was a kindred project.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes. I made AIDS activists videos and had also produced a very low budget black queer feature film, The Watermelon Woman. Longer, bigger, but in the same heart-head-community-space of the work collected by J-4-J.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time I thought it was inspiring, smart, useful, and beautiful. Since then, I’ve written about it in relation to my scholarly/activist writing about YouTube: how many of the realizations of YouTube (that regular people or women/girls now have access to production/distribution of media). In that writing, I think J-4-J does some things better than YouTube!

“While at first look these VHS chain letters seem to be a dead or dying form “given the ease, access, and cost of sharing video on the Internet,” I realized that what they will always have over YouTube is the actual, small community that can only be created by the painstaking and careful act of choosing to attach your work to an object that already has a community built onto and within it. The VHS chain letter permits the safety of the slow through the space of the movable box.

I’ve been a fan and supporter of Miranda for a long time, but I hadn’t looked at those tapes from the late 1990s for quite a while. What seemed most critical was how they anticipated YouTube (in particular the vlog): lonely rural girls using video to speak to each other straight from their rooms about oppression they face in their home and hometown.

What I didn’t think about so much at the time was how many of these isolated grrls being empowered by video were actually making their tapes (about rural isolation) while attending the progressive colleges in bigger towns or cities that supported the lo-fi, autobiographical project of Miranda July. Take my student Erica Anderson, whose tape Lucas showed and who made her amazing, minimal, camcorder video about rural life in North Dakota while living in Southern California and taking video art classes at Pitzer College.

While the private stories of the girls are undoubtedly true, Joanie 4 Jackie highlights that a shared, messy, homemade aesthetic that lives across the work in the tapes, even for college coeds who could make “better,” speaks volumes as a carefully constructed formal choice. This is at once another version of the retrofuturism that I’ve written about in relation, for instance, to Be Kind Rewind, while also being an example of why people (women) (like me) choose bad video as a suitable formal register for their process and place. In all cases, a fond feeling about a manufactured authenticity and wistful ethics of community registered within VHS is at play.”
http://vectors.usc.edu/ projects/learningfromyoutube/ texteo.php?composite=17

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Eclectic nature of the connected tapes.
Miranda’s exuberance and intelligence.
The fun of it all.
How serious it was.
It turned my students on, for sure. Spoke to them.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
Professor of Media Studies. Filmmaker.

Alex MacKenzie, programmer
February 23, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was programming films at my second microcinema, The Blinding Light!! Cinema in Vancouver (Canada), Olympia and Portland aren’t so far away. There was a regular crossover with folks like Matt McCormick and Vanessa Renwick at the time, people who were touring their film work up and down the coast. I was running shows 6 nights a week so there was a lot of programming going on!

What interested you about the project?
Everything. The concept, the people, the graphics, the open source quality. And especially the films.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was a filmmaker, yes, and a programmer of films for my cinema as well as others.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
As a curator, I remember there being a rise to prominence of women making films at that time, and that the Chainletter Tapes were a part of that experimental Zeitgeist. I think I first showed them in mid-1999, a programming cycle that also included works by a slew of local women filmmakers including Mary Daniels, Ileana Pietrobruno, Kyath Battie, Claudia Morgado, Julia Kwan, Fumiko Kiyooka, Bo Myers, Camen Pollard, Sarah Butterfield, Seanna McPherson, Yasmin Karim, Ellie Epp, Sook Yin Lee, and Mina Shum. On top of these there were films presented by many out of towners including Maia Cybele Carpenter, Jeannie Liotta, Diane Bonder, Vanessa Renwick, Barbara Sternberg, Su Friedrich and plenty more. More Chainletter Tapes followed later that year and then came Joanie4Jackie and eventually The Swan Tool tour. Good times!

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I would love to see more of this kind of curating and programming, and I think there is a hunger for it, a great antidote to the bland of the mainstream.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
See above!

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Pike Street Cinema in Seattle, Craig Baldwin’s Other Cinema in SF, Owen O’Toole, Jeanne Liotta, Vanessa Renwick, Mike Hoolboom, Pixelvision, Anne Robertson, Sarah Jacobson, the Kuchars, Bruce Baillie, Arthur Lipsett, the list goes on and on…

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
Still making and showing films.
The archive for the BL!!C is here: www.blindinglight.com
My site: www.alexmackenzie.ca

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
This is a great resource and a beautiful marker of a time.
Well done, glad to have it webbed.

Shauna McGarry, retrospective curator/assistant
May 15, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
When I was 18, in 2001, I went to film school at New York University. While I was, for the most part, inspired by my curriculum, I felt a lack of women made films and female protagonists. I would eventually meet other students who shared similar frustrations and hopes and we made some cool and always sort of awful student films together but as a freshman, J4J was a big “aha!” discovery. I would conduct these very rudimentary internet searches with search-words like “woman”, “filmmaker”, “independent”, “punk”, “riot,” etc. and it didn’t take long for Joanie4Jackie to pop up because it was truly one of the only things out there filling the void. Miranda’s call to action blew my mind. I was so excited she was out there — that the chainletters were out there — and by proxy, all these other women were out there making things!

What interested you about the project?
At 18, in my school’s computer lab, I was drawn to J4J more as an idea and a philosophy to live by. Miranda’s language, her beautiful rally cries, the community she had fostered, and the DIY willfulness of it all comforted me. When I was a little older, and started working with Miranda, and was tasked to archive and document the project, I came to appreciate it on a much bigger level. Joanie for Jackie defined a moment in time before the internet took over when an access-way to art made on the margins had to be created and shared person to person. Like zines, the chainletter tapes were this physical proof of a network and community just finding itself and solidifying. And J4J dared to suggest that as filmmakers, women didn’t need to rely on the mainstream system that hadn’t warmly welcomed us for so long. We could exist outside of it. We could shift the power to us. Also, the films themselves were always interesting, bold, and from so many different voices. The work itself was really the most interesting.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes. I was just starting to make films, and now, 12 years later, I’d still consider myself a beginner in many ways. I was and am more of a writer than a shooter. But going through all these pages and remembering the project is getting me inspired to go make something right now!

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
My favorite memory is erecting the retrospective of the project at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It was so rewarding to get to share the films and ephemera anew with a different generation and a larger group of art lovers. I also will never forget watching sooo many hours of lady-made cinema in my dark little cave of a studio by myself and wishing so much I could time travel and be there when each film was made and meet the filmmakers responsible for so much inventiveness.

I also cherish getting to discuss the history and intent of the project with Miranda while we were preparing the exhibit and making the documentary. She wanted so much for this project and for the women involved and for her own artistic journey. Her passion and vision continue to inspire me.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
It was a really unique way to build a community. I love the intention and what came out of it. Many people involved with J4J have continued to work in video, art, and advocacy for equal rights and access. I’m glad more people will be able to access it through these archives.I briefly toured with curated programs of independent film and video before the J4J / Some Kind of Loving tour, but after it I toured frequently for several years, helping to distribute and promote works not widely available and build an international community of microcinemas and alternative art spaces. This was all before YouTube, Vimeo, and fast internet – when access was dependent upon physically bringing the work to different cities. I learned how to tour in an intense but healthy way from Miranda.I think at the time, J4J was absolutely necessary and a revolutionary, loving, and positive way to unify what felt like a very disparate group of artists (from all over the USA) who needed recognition, support and community.

It’s hard to know whether something like J4J is still needed now. We all have so much more access to distribution, so many more ways to find each other. I know even with everything the internet has to offer, that I still feel isolated sometimes as a woman filmmaker and still yearn to find others like me and build a stronger community of support. I work in Hollywood, and I don’t have an answer anymore, or I have a very complicated, personal answer, as to whether I think platforms like J4J, where women artists are unified as something separate from our male counterparts, are what we need anymore. I do feel even within the system, where women are still a minority, that gender power dynamics are shifting, equalizing, though slowly. I wish they would speed up. I so admire those independent and experimental filmmakers who work outside the system rather than bend or change to fit into its very rigid and often close-minded ideas of art and entertainment. I am working professionally from within that mainstream trying to broaden its scope from the inside and… it’s hard. Sometimes, I hope we are moving toward a time where we are no longer classified by our gender because while it can gather us and bolster our efforts, it can also be manipulated as a means to limit us. And at the same time, I appreciate the differences in tone and language and message in art made by women and I think such differences should be valued and discussed and encouraged.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
In college — Sleater Kinney, le Tigre, Elisabeth Subrin, my gender studies classes, this one cinema studies teacher I had who showed us a lot of sexploitation movies and films with radical female characters from the 60s. Sunita Prasad and Sharon Mashihi who were the ones I found at film school who made me feel less alone.

Working on the YBCA show — All the filmmakers completely inspired me and many continue to do so. It’s such a crazy roster of talent and vision. And of course, Miranda July. The Echo Park Film Center which is the closest thing to the J4J spirit of community-building in filmmaking that I’ve been a part of while living in LA.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m a comedy writer on a sitcom. I perform stories. I work as a non-profit administrator on my free time. I need to make more movies. I’m going to put some film in my super 8 right now.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
A community board and calendar in the spirit of the original project, advertising events, web projects, screenings, filmmakers we should know about, films, and other art so that we can continue to network with each other and learn from each other.

Pablo de Ocampo, interested fan/supporter
July 26, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I was living in Portland for a couple months in early 1996 and I think I learned about it through flyers at shows and just word of mouth from people around town. I was 19 at the time and into music so I was going to shows whenever I could. I remember seeing Miranda play shows a couple times that year at some long gone venues: the Paris Theatre downtown and the Rexall Rose on Alberta. Also, I was doing at internship at the Northwest Film Center. I don’t remember who or what the context was, but I think someone there mentioned it to me as well.

What interested you about the project?
I grew up reading zines and being around the music scene, mostly as a listener/reader, but also made a few random zines here and there and had a not very serious art/noise band in high school. These brief activities aside, I wasn’t really a musician or a writer. At the time I first saw Miranda perform and learned about the chain letter tapes, I made art—films and sculpture mostly. So when I encountered people in the punk scene who had these parallel interests in art/film it was exciting for me.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I was only ever a fan and supporter of Joanie 4 Jackie. But back in the mid/late 90s, yes, I did consider myself a filmmaker.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I grew up in a very feminist aware punk scene in high school. Or rather, maybe not a scene, as it would be really misleading to characterize the punk scene in Phoenix in the early 90s as feminist, but I guess I was just in a group of friends that were committed to those ideas. So, this coupled with my interest in zines and in experimental film and video art led to my being really in awe of what the chain letter tapes were doing at the time. It was really the culmination of so many of my interests in a way that I had never seen before. Not being a woman or female identified, I didn’t participate as a maker but I did really champion of it and would tell everyone about it. I don’t think about this project all time, but when it does come up, I’m still really struck with how incredible it was. I don’t think I ever saw all the tapes, but even when I’ve scanned back and looked at the list of people included, particularly in those tapes from the 90s, I’m always amazed at how many of those people I came to know later in life.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Music in general, but especially a lot of things happening in the Pacific Northwest not exclusively what was going on with the Riot Grrrl scene. Art and film: Yoko Ono, Valie Export, Eva Hesse, Trinh Minh-Ha, Yvonne Rainer, Chris Marker and Louise Bourgois. Zines like Slant/Slander, Alien, Doris, Bamboo Girl, Dreamwhip, Cometbus. Books and writing: Dorothy Allison, Kathy Acker, Jorge Luis Borges.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I don’t make films or other things anymore but have remained involved in film and art since that time, both personally just through my interests as well as professionally for at least fifteen years. That has involved working at a zine library and resource center, working at a film festival, and now working as a curator at a multi-disciplinary artist run centre in Vancouver, Canada. I still own a Bolex camera and have a box full of edited and unedited films in my closet.

Janet Pierson, director of a piece about J4J for Split Screen, a series on IFC cable series
March 4, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Miranda sent a note about it, to our Split Screen office. Split Screen was a magazine format cable tv series. She wondered if we might be interested in it. My husband handed it to me saying, “This sounds like your kind of thing.” I also heard about it from the curator Ralph McKay.

What interested you about the project?
I loved the concept of giving voice to the voiceless and building a community around creative work.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
It’s funny, I didn’t consider myself a filmmaker – still don’t, but my interest in Joanie 4 Jackie led me to direct a digital video segment about it and Miranda for Split Screen. So in effect, my interest in Joanie 4 Jackie led to me creating a short documentary piece.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Loved the weekend in Portland interviewing Miranda. Remember working w/ index cards on the floor to make a paper cut of the piece before my time w/ the actual editor.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I loved Miranda’s poster project that was related, if you were going to make a movie, what would that be? I don’t recall the exact words but remember them in her voice. I love being a tiny link in the chain of Miranda July’s creative evolution.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
I didn’t attend a screening of Joanie 4 Jackie but did attend a screening of the Best of Split Screen at Lincoln Center in NY, which included my piece on Joanie 4 Jackie. I was the Executive Producer of the show, which was about and by filmmakers. I was hands on creatively but having directed that piece that I was proud of, I felt like I’d finally earned my place at the table in a different way.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Split Screen. The whole independent film movement. Sundance Film Festival. SXSW FIlm Festival and Conference.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I’m the Head of SXSW Film Festival and Conference. So yes, I am still involved in filmmaking, specifically, in helping to curate other filmmakers. I give them a platform the same way Joanie 4 Jackie did, kinda.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
I’d love to see reference to my Split Screen piece. I can’t remember if I supplied Miranda w/ a master tape or not. I might be able to help more with that again soon. Or least it would be nice to link to a reference to it. It might be finally available publicly soon.