Strand's "ethnographic" documentaries are sensuous, lyrical poems that, in the artist's words, "celebrate the tenacity and uniqueness of the human spirit." Using the camera almost as if it were her moving hand, Strand combines intimate visual portraits with the voices and stories of the people she is portraying. Strand's gaze never objectifies, never romanticizes, and never fixes meaning. Rather, her fluid and mobile camera style and her juxtaposition of conflicting points of view on the sound track create a complex and shifting space where human dignity and grace take precedence over any easy or pat value judgments. Made while Strand was at UCLA, Mosori Monika (1970, 20 mins, Color) portrays the acculturation process of the Warao Indians in Venezuela from the perspectives of a Franciscan nun and an old Indian woman. Anselmo and the Women (1986, 35 mins, Color), one of Strand's most moving and resonant films, gently interweaves the poignant stories of Anselmo (already the subject of two earlier films), his wife Adela and his lover Cruz, while Fake Fruit (1986, 22 mins, Color) is a portrait of the young women who make papier maché fruit in a small factory in rural Mexico as they work, gossip, and play.-Irina Leimbacher