• Letters

  • My Name Is Oona

  • Sweet Dreams

  • Coffee

  • I Change I Am the Same

  • Plastic Blag



Serious Business Company and Bay Area Women Artists



In Conversation

  • Introduction
    Tanya Zimbardo

    Tanya Zimbardo is a curator who has organized artist film programs and exhibitions at SFMOMA and for Bay Area nonprofits.

  • Dorothy Wiley

    Dorothy Wiley began making films in the 1960s exploring her everyday experience living in the Bay Area; we present three new BAMPFA preservation prints of her work.

  • Antonella Bonfanti

    Antonella Bonfanti is the BAMPFA film collection supervisor.

  • Jon Shibata

    Jon Shibata is the BAMPFA film archivist.

Bay Area experimental filmmaking during the 1960s and 1970s is studded by the brilliant works of pioneering women artists. Working in support of one another and often collaboratively, they drew on their experiences as women as inspiration for their films. At the center of this community was Freude (1942–2009), a filmmaker and trailblazing entrepreneur. Her Serious Business Company distributed many of the era’s most acclaimed films, but its lasting impact was creating a platform for the discovery of lesser-known works. In this Out of the Vault program, we present BAMPFA’s preservation of a suite of 16mm short films by both influential and undervalued Bay Area women filmmakers whose works were distributed by Serious Business Company, including experimental films by Dorothy Wiley, which explore the poetics of everyday life. Wiley’s Coffee will also be presented on our outdoor screen through September 30 at 10 AM, 2 PM, and 5 PM.

— Antonella Bonfanti

Films in this Screening

Schmeerguntz

Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley, United States, 1965

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 15 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preservation funded by AFI Challenge Grant for Film Preservation

I Change I Am the Same

Anne Severson [Aliceanne Parker], Shelby Kennedy, United States, 1969

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 1 mins
source
  • BAMPFA

Riverbody

Anne Severson [Aliceanne Parker], United States, 1970

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 7 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preservation funded by Women’s Film Preservation Fund

Plastic Blag

Judith Wardwell, United States, 1970

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 7 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preserved through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation, funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation

The Weenie Worm or The Fat Innkeeper

Dorothy Wiley, United States, 1972

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 11 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preservation funded by National Film Preservation Foundation

Letters

Dorothy Wiley, United States, 1972

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 11 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preservation funded by National Film Preservation Foundation

Coffee

Dorothy Wiley, United States, 1977

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • Silent
  • 8 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preservation funded by National Film Preservation Foundation

Promise Her Anything but Give Her the Kitchen Sink

Freude, United States, 1969

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 4 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preserved through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation, funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation

Sweet Dreams

Freude, United States, 1971

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 3 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preserved through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation, funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation

My Name Is Oona

Gunvor Nelson, United States, 1969

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 10 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print Preserved through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation, funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation