Jennifer Reeder | USA 2015, 33 minutes | 1pm, Sunday 23 July
Pop culture talismans and music hits feed the surreal atmosphere of Jennifer Reeder’s films, which evoke the magical power of the secret languages of adolescence and interrogate gender divides. – Carmen Gray, Dazed
This musical narrative chronicles a week in the lives of three teenage girls, from different social circles, who form a bond in the week leading up to the school dance. Countdown to prom night is actually countdown to irreversible change for each girl. Two of the girls are falling in love with each other against all expectations and the third girl is forced to mother her own mother in the wake of her father’s disappearance. Each girl seeks comfort within the walls of her bedroom where the music blasting from the turntable provides a magical synchronicity between them all.
Blood Below the Skin is preceded by a program of woman-directed shorts that also draw on the emotional logic of music:
Solitary Acts #4 (Dinçel, 2015, 8 minutes), A Million Miles Away (Reeder, 2014, 29minutes), and Amelia Rose Towers (Farkas, 1992, 11minutes).
D Jennifer Reeder S Jennifer Reeder P Penelope Bartlett and Steven Hudosh C Christopher Rejano E Mike Olenick
Language: English
Distribution: Jennifer Reeder DCPUnrated 18+
Introduced by Dr Courtney Coombs. Coombs is a Brisbane-based contemporary artist and activist whose practice critiques heteronormative patriarchal society through strategically manipulating narrative, romantic clichés, everyday paraphernalia and humour.