Chick Strand

Biography

Mildred "Chick" Strand's accomplishments as an artist spanned more than three decades. In the early 1960s, with a new anthropology degree in hand, she turned her attention to ethnographic filmmaking. Her early work focused on Meso-American cultures explored through the language of the experimental documentary. In 1961, she founded Canyon Cinema with Bruce Baillie, an organization that, in 1965, spawned the San Francisco Cinematheque. They organized screenings of experimental, documentary and narrative films in East Bay backyards and community centers. Acting in response to a lack of public venues for independent movies, they were part of a wider explosion in American avant-garde film. The era was one of social idealism and communal energy, and the films they showcased boldly embraced purely cinematic visual expression and cultural critique. Strand left Northern California in the late 1960s to pursue studies in ethnographic film at UCLA. She then joined the faculty of Occidental College, where she served as the director of the film as art program for a quarter of a century. In the 1970s she continued to define her visual technique, and her subjects more frequently became women. Sh…

Directed

1. Fake Fruit Factory (1986) — Director
2. Soft Fiction (1979) — Director
3. Elasticity (1975) — Director
4. Kristallnacht (1979) — Director
5. Woman of a Thousand Fires (1976) — Director
6. Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) — Director
7. Coming Up for Air (1986) — Director
8. Artificial Paradise (1986) — Director
9. Cosas de mi vida (1976) — Director
10. Woman with Flowers (2011) — Director
11. Sears Sox (1968) — Director
12. Anselmo and the Women (1986) — Director
13. Cartoon Le Mousse (1979) — Director
14. Fever Dream (1979) — Director
15. Mosori Monika (1970) — Director
16. Eric and the Monsters (1965) — Director
17. Waterfall (1968) — Director
18. Loose Ends (1979) — Director
19. By the Lake (1986) — Director
20. Anselmo (1967) — Director
21. Guacamole (1975) — Director
22. Kulu Se Mama (1968) — Director
23. Children Are Our First Priority: Title 1 (1971) — Director