Su Friedrich – MRQE

Damned If You Don’t

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Beautifully shot in black and white, it blends conventional narrative technique with impressionistic camerawork, symbols and voiceovers to create an intimate study of sexual expression and repression. It begins with footage from a stylish old potboiler about an isolated convent, whose tale of passions leashed and unleashed provides the leitmotif for a young lesbian who watches it and the lonely nun she pursues and seduces. As the two women’s lives come closer to joining, voiceovers from the biography of a 16th century lesbian nun and the reminiscences of a woman’s closeted romances at a Catholic school flesh out the theme. When the two women finally meet and make love, the woman’s careful unwrapping of the nun’s complicated prison of clothing is both foreplay and liberating metaphor.

Hide and Seek (TV)

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Mixes documentary interviews of memories of lesbian adolescence with the story of the 12-year-old girl Lou discovering her sexuality in 1960s America.

Sink or Swim

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.

First Comes Love

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

First Comes Love consists of perfectly choreographed scenes of four wedding ceremonies accompanied by a complex medley of popular love songs. All seems to be going as it should until the couples reach the altar, when the celebratory atmosphere is interrupted for a surprising public service announcement. Then song and dance continues until the happy couples depart, leaving behind a dwindling crowd and a few altar boys who carefully sweep up the rice that blankets the pavement like snow. The film doesn’t attempt to defend–or discredit–the institution of marriage. Instead, it reveals the many subtle emotions surrounding the event, and raises questions about how the double standard regarding marriage affects gay and straight couples.

Gut Renovation

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

In 1989, together with a group of female friends, Su Friedrich rented and renovated an old loft in Williamsburg, an unassuming working-class district of Brooklyn. In 2005 this former industrial zone was designated a residential area and the factories, manufacturers and artistslofts were priced out by property speculators lured by tax breaks. Friedrich spent five years documenting with her camera the changes in the area. She shows the demolition of industrial buildings and the construction of trendy new apartments for wealthy clients, watching old tenants leave and new inhabitants arrive. As she keeps meticulous record of developments, the extent and speed of the upheaval becomes clear. Her own tenancy agreement expires too and so her documentary images and trenchant commentary become the tools of her growing anger. A documentary of small changes evolves into an historical record of New York, a case study of the rapid gentrification of our cities.

The Ties That Bind

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

The Ties That Bind is an experimental documentary about the filmmaker’s mother, who was born and lived in southern Germany from 1920-1950. Through a mixture of personal anecdote and social history, she describes the rise of Nazism, the war years, and the Allied occupation, during which she met her future husband, an American soldier. The Ties That Bind breaks with the usual format of war documentaries, thus allowing a different portrait of the individual to emerge, while it reflects on the current political situation in America and the filmmaker’s activities in relation to those issues.

The Odds of Recovery

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

After a twenty year period of multiple illnesses and injuries, the filmmaker turns the camera on herself as a way to analyze her chances for a happier, healthier life. In the process, she captures the frustration, tedium and petty annoyances of a revolving-door relationship with the medical establishment, while portraying the complicated web of emotions that accompany any medical problem. With humor and honesty, The Odds of Recovery uses the filmmaker’s medical history as a means to address a perennial human problem: the desire to avoid conflict and deny the need for radical change.