The Story of Anna O
“For me to make a film, I have to see it, to ‘know' the pictures before I can begin to work on it physically. And so, in a sense, although it was improbable for me to choose this film, to attempt a costume drama when I had only $1500 to spend, I had to make it. I was drawn to the image at the end of the movie, the image of a woman left entirely alone. The Story of Anna O is the account of a woman abandoned - and it is a story, I think, every woman knows. The fact that the narrative is a psychoanalytic case history is incidental. Let's just say, Freud is a good story-teller.
“One of the strengths of the movie for me is that this particular narrative is actually heightened by what is essentially a very low-budget production. The problem of recreating the turn of the century was partially overcome by the use of non-synch sound and black and white film. The film was shot in Berkeley, mainly in my apartment. I conjured up Vienna with a hair ribbon, a vase, and a piece of lace.” -T.S.

• Directed by Terrel Seltzer. Screenplay by Terrel Seltzer based on the book “Studies on Hysteria” by Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer. Photographed by Kathleen Beeler. With Hilary Radner, Moe Moskowitz, Robert Hughes, Bertrand Augst, Beth Anderson, Laurie Cornwall, Isaac Cronin. Narrated by Jeanne Wolff v. Amerongen. (1979, 20 mins, Print from filmmaker)

Invisible Adversary (Unsichtbare Gegner)
Valie Export is a member of the somewhat notorious Austrian Filmmakers' Cooperative in Vienna, and since 1968 she has been involved with various forms of “expanded cinema” in which film is extended into live action: performance, body art, happenings, environments, “direct art” or “materialaktion,” and “object films.” She is also well known for her organization of exhibitions of Women's Art from Paris to Vienna, and has worked in photography and video as well as film. More recently she has been engaged in theoretical work. Introduced at the Youth Forum of the 1977 Berlin Film Festival, Invisible Adversary, a psychological sci-fi film, written by Export and her frequent film/event collaborator and Austrian dramatist, Peter Weibel, has already become something of a sensation in Europe. It is a story of the disintegration of perception and society as experienced by a photographer and video reporter who thinks she is going mad over the breakup of a relationship. A psychiatrist is consulted to deal with “Hyksos,” her “hidden adversary,” who wants to destroy the Earth by taking over human bodies and altering their consciousness. Video feedback is used as a part of the therapy, and the film amusingly explores all the “angsts” of the heroine's life, showing life as it really is, from Viennese urban redevelopment and traffic to male aggressiveness and “lack of communication.” Co-author Weibel and actress-model Susanne Widl star in this semi-autobiographical story.

• Directed and Produced by Valie Export. Screenplay by Export and Peter Weibel. Photographed by Wolfgang Simon. With Peter Weibel, Susanne Widl. (1977, 100 mins, color, English titles)