Artists in Person
Free First Thursday Screening!
Tickets available at the PFA Theater starting at 4:30

What does it take to be comfortable in one's own skin? Swimming in English (Victoria Comune, Argentina/U.S., 2004, 10 mins) buoyantly meets the fearsome challenge of immersing oneself in strange environments. Growing up in the absence of their mothers, the girls in Suckerfish (Lisa Jackson, Canada, 2004, 8 mins, Beta SP, From Documentary Educational Resources) and Mama Said (Yasmina Cádiz, 2004, 8 mins, Beta SP) develop the courage to reclaim their childhoods. The makers of experimental documentaries Fulton and Franklin (Donna Golden, 2005, 3 mins) and Her Ways (Korina M. Jocson, 2005, 2 mins) attentively look to their neighborhoods for a sense of belonging. Globalocal (Alyssa Contreras, 2004, 4 mins) and Slip of the Tongue (Karen Lum, 2005, 4 mins) show that getting comfortable sometimes means shedding abrasive labels, whether literal or figurative. In Seeds (Prithi Gowda, 2005, 7 mins), a shy student finds a friendly face in an unwelcoming place. Christine Choy's beautifully filmed documentary Sparrow Village (Christine Choy, 2003, 27 mins, In English, Mandarin, and Miao with English subtitles, From Filmakers Library) follows the scholarly ambitions of girls in rural China, revealing how far they must go to sustain their hopes of becoming teachers and doctors.