Film Collection:

Some Women Writers Kill Themselves:
Selected Videopoems and Poetry of Alexis Krasilovsky

"...an impressive collection by an accomplished multimedia artist who has been at her craft since the mid-1970's... it should be required viewing..."
- Ryk McIntyre, GotPoetry.com
complete review of the DVD:

"Alexis Krasilovsky, in her poetry videos, works expertly with contradiction. Her poems speak of disaster and despair, yet produce feelings of hope."
- G. Murray Thomas, Next

"...Southern California's poetry video diva."
- Beyond Baroque

2 Weeks in Nevada

WINNER: "Best of the Fest" Literary Award 2008 - Austin Woman's Film, Music & Literary Festival

"...makes my hair stand on end."
- Jan Seides

Alexis Krasilovsky's poetry has appeared in numerous films and videos, including Exile, Epicenter U., and What Memphis Needs, which aired on PBS' The 90's nationwide. Born in Alaska and educated at Smith, Yale and California Institute of the Arts, she currently lives in Los Angeles.

 

This DVD is signed by the Filmmaker and includes the following films:

What Memphis Needs (cinepoem - 1991)
Valium Blues (videopoem - 1983)
Commiseration Moon (cinepoem - 1976)
Inside Story (videopoem - 1983)
Bay-Bee (videopoem - 1988)
Exile (cinepoem from the film, Exile - 1984)
The Earthquake Haggadah (cinepoem from the film, Epicenter U. - 1995)
Camp Terezin (videopoem - 1999)

With bonus short film:

Blood (1975) - the first punk film.

Additionally, poetry selections from the following chapbooks are included on the DVD:

Some Women Writers Kill Themselves (1983, 1985)
Some Men (1986, 1990)
Abuse of Privacy (1990)
Self-Portrait as a Geisha (2008 - not yet published as a chapbook)

View a clip of What Memphis Needs

 

CREDITS:
Associate Producer: Reseda Mickey
DVD Authoring: Katey Bright
DVD Mastering: Brian Dehler, Cine-O-Matic
Sound Recording: Ann Krupa Klamer
Cover Layout: Katey Bright
Cover Art/Photo: Three
Poetry Editing: Julia Stein

 

Category: Poetry

Plot Keywords: Poetry, Videopoems, Cinepoems, Experimental films, feminism

Available on DVD:

- Home Use $29.95 Buy Now
- Institutional Use $225.00 Buy Now

Special Bonus:
Blood (1975) - the first punk film.

Order your copy now.

PLEASE ALLOW 14 DAYS FOR DELIVERY

Back

Complete review of the DVD collection:

"This is an impressive collection by an accomplished multimedia artist who has been at her craft since the mid-1970's. Featuring a total of 8 video poems, 4 interactive chapbooks (collecting poems from 1983-2008) and the punk film "Blood" from 1975, there is an almost scary density of material here.

The DVD opens with "What Memphis Needs" a video collage of Memphis, made in 1991. The piece starts out with harmonica music from Roosevelt Briggs and from the three-piece Harmonkeys, and is a collage of images from Memphis that illustrate both the history and also the racial/class differences. This isn't a Chamber of Commerce travelogue, to say the least. Besides the aforementioned musicians, Alexis credits the appearance of everyone who appears in this piece. Since it is a piece about the realities of a community, this is a classy move.

Many of the pieces concern feminist perspective ("Commiseration Moon" and "Inside Story" (which was the first art video to utilize Endoscopic camerawork - talk about putting yourself into your work!) or Alexis' Jewish roots and Jewish History during WWII .

"Exile" is set against chilling documentary shots of the collection and deportation of Jews to the concentration camps, as does the terribly haunting "Camp Terezin" which tells the story of a camp where nearly 150,000 children died during the war, set against children's art. You can't watch this and not feel your heart clench and not want to hold your own children close to your chest.

Notable also is "The Earthquake Haggadah" (Excerpted from the film "Epicenter U." and narrated by Wanda Coleman) that links disasters of the human heart to natural disasters as a way of celebrating Passover.

And "Valium Blues" has all the charm of early MTV videos, back when bands like The Cure were having a great time playing with the new art form and just diving in with all sorts of low-tech ideas and unpretentious sense of fun.

Alexis herself has a rather staggering resume: educated at Smith, Yale & California Institute of the Arts; screenings of her works have been held all over the world, from Shakespeare & Company in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art as well as CBGB's in NYC, L.A. and the Austin Women's Film, Music & Literary Festival (where this collection won "Best of the Fest" award this year).
Her work has been shown on PBS.
She has been the recipient of more awards, grants and fellowships than I have fingers to type them with.
She also wrote and directed the award-winning feature documentary "Women Behind the Camera."
She currently teaches Screen Writing at California State University at Northridge.

This is a content-rich collection, and frankly it should be required viewing for anyone interested in even one of the things Alexis does so well, whether that be writing, film and video work, historical documentary making, etc., etc... whatever. Plainly said, the woman is a mighty, mighty force for Art in this world.

- Ryk McIntyre, GotPoetry.com
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