Marilyn Fabe teaches in the Film Program at U.C. Berkeley. Maya Deren (1908-1961) almost single-handedly established a mileu for the avant-garde film in this country. In the mid-forties she went on tour to campuses and museums across the country to encourage artists to explore the medium's unused capacities and to promote the making of low-budget personal films. Using as models her own mesmerizing short experimental films, her efforts spawned a movement-the New American Cinema-and her films and ideas continue to inspire new generations of independent film artists. Film as an art form, Deren believed, should convey inner experience, not events that can be witnessed by other persons. Tonight we will present a selection of Maya Deren's films preceded by a lecture on how they break with conventional cinematic form to reflect her experience as a woman and an artist. The publication of Volume 1 of The Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works* provides a rich assortment of materials on Deren's life, allowing a deeper understanding of the interior experiences her films reflect. The program concludes with a rarely seen special treat: The Private Life of a Cat, previously credited to Alexander Hammid, Deren's husband, but recently understood as a close collaboration between the two. --Marilyn Fabe *Clark, Hodson, and Neiman (Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture, New York 1984, 1988)