Sifted Evidence
“A woman is telling the story of how she went to Mexico looking for an obscure archeological site; how she met a man who promised to take her there; how they stayed together locked in cross-purposes and misunderstandings--how, but never why. The central event has been reconstructed through stills, narration and enactment by two performers in a tableau limited by the boundaries of a front projection screen” (Patricia Gruben). “Patricia Gruben's striking featurette starts like a parody of anthropological films and turns into a hallucinatory subjective account of one woman's Mexican misadventure. Among the most assured experimental narratives of the early '80s, Sifted Evidence makes particularly brilliant use of Syberberg-like front-screen projection” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice).
Canadian filmmaker Patricia Gruben (who has degrees in both anthropology and film) has been making films since 1971. Sifted Evidence was featured at the International Festival of New Cinema in Montreal, the Flaherty Film Seminars and was a prize winner at the Athens Film Festival.