I had the privilege to speak to a feminist filmmaker named Adrianne Finelli. She is an artist who works with people to reveal their own stories and memories, probing personal histories that are not usually told, and tend to get swallowed up. She is interested in repressed and undocumented history, and how experimental documentary practice can portray these stories in an open and emotional way. With a social work lens, she acts as a mediator and the project functions as a type of intervention. By exploring personal loss and the unrecognized grief of everyday life through the framework of families, she hopes to spark meaningful dialog among those involved in the project, as well as those beyond.

Her work has been viewed internationally and screened at a variety of venues including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Burton Theater, Big Muddy Film Festival, Cinema & Contemporary Art 3: Paris, the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Harvard University Medical Campus, and the Washington DC Independent Film Festival.

Her films were of interest to me because I too am interested in documentaries and the sharing of stories. I think that some of the best films come from true personal experiences. Adrianne does an amazing job of combining personal conversations with animations and film to help create a sense of privacy for the people she interviews. In the future I also hope to incorporate stories from around the world into unique films. These stories could be centered around, but not confined to, feminism and how people define it. Our conversation was unique and inspiring, and I learned a lot about Adrianne and the works she is passionate about.

Carrie: I understand a lot of students wanted to interview you, so I am glad I got in contact first. When I saw your first film, which was the Too Soon, Too Late film, I really wanted to talk to you about your style and see how you documented your interactions like that.

Adrianne: Yeah, it seems like each student was very interested in stories of trauma and loss and things like that. I'm constantly getting pocket dials, because A.D. is always at the top of the press book.

Carrie: So the first question I have is, how many films have you made throughout your filming career? You can be more specific to feminist films, or you can be just very general about it.

Adrianne: I don't have the number off the top of my head. And that is because I've been making little films since maybe… my middle school days. I would make little documentaries and little video projects. In high school, I started formally studying and took a film and video course. I've made a lot of little tiny projects, and a lot of them have meant a lot to me. I've made a lot of videos that are parts of other types of artworks that might not be called stand-alone films because I work in other mediums. I do installation, and I also do printmaking, and photography. I have always been interested in all different types of arts. I've made videos and films that are part of art exhibitions and shows … so a lot of my stuff is short form. I've never made a feature length work. I could see myself doing that at some point, but I love shorts, and I love short stories and poetry. That's sort of what I find myself reading, especially now during quarantine, because I haven't been able to focus on novels and that sort of thing. And then I've also worked on projects with other people. So I'd say it's hard to give an actual number, but you know, dozens of projects.

Carrie: Well, let's talk about what it has been like working with other people. Is it ever difficult to work with other people and get your point across? I was reading briefly about one of your common collaborators named Brian. Do you work with him a lot? Do you guys collaborate very well? And would you consider your goals and intentions of the films you make to be the same?

Adrianne: Hmm. Well, Brian Boyce is my partner and we live together. So we've collaborated on a bunch of different projects in the past, and are currently working on a couple of things right now. I've made other works with other artists as well and I've always liked collaborating with people. However, I think some of my works are, you know, very personal, very DIY, and kind of small scale for that reason of being able to work on my own. I love working by myself as well, but I like working with people. A lot of these projects where I'm working on my own, individually, it's still with others in the sense that it's interview based and, you know, working with different families, or working with groups of people.

Brian and I have similar interests, but different skill sets. He's much more animation based, and so has a lot more experience with digital animation and doing motion graphics and things like that. So it's always nice to work with someone who has complementary skills that you can add onto each other.

Carrie: Of course. Because a lot of your work has to do with interviews and trauma, Is it ever difficult to get these stories out of people, about their previous memories? For instance, in Too Soon Too Late, all the children are sharing how they dealt with their mom's death and how their relationship with her and her husband was very difficult on them. Was it ever hard for anyone to continue the interview? Would they need breaks and pauses to clear their heads.

Adrianne: So that was my graduate thesis work. I don't know if it's clear, but it's, it's working with my father and his five siblings. The story is about my paternal grandmother, and grandfather sort of tangentially. Why I made that project was that when I was 10 years old, I found out that my grandmother killed herself. That was the only thing I knew about her. I knew both of my grandfather's had passed away from heart related conditions, but I never knew how my dad's mother had died.

[pause]

I didn't understand why. I asked my mother this question, and it was at quite a young age to find out about that (10 years old). I think, hearing that shaped me. It had such a huge impact on me. I think I was always a sensitive kid, and that's the only thing I really knew about her until I started working on this project. I was in my late 20s, when I was making that, and I think it was just sort of odd. Previously, any type of information I wanted to know about her, I went to old photographs and home movies and things like that. I think that's where the interest in old photographic material comes from, because it's just too painful for my dad and his siblings to talk about, and I think there's such a stigma and shame for the survivors of suicide loss.

Even though the sibling group was very close knit, they would talk at great length about how abusive their father was, but I never really heard any of them mention my grandmother. There was a very beautiful portrait of her sitting by the piano, and I went through a period of taking piano lessons. So as a 10-11 year old girl I would stare at this woman and think ‘Who is this woman? I'm related to her, but the only thing I know is that she decided to leave’. I think I used this thesis project as a way of coercion for my dad and the siblings to talk about it. They were all very supportive of my artwork, and they really wanted to be part of it. Had one of them not wanted to do the project, I wouldn't have done it at all, because, for me, it was about bringing the siblings closer through having the conversations.

The interviews happened individually. It was the first time in my life that I sat down with my aunts and uncles and my father, as an adult -- I had seen them at different holidays and get togethers, but you're kind of always the kid, you know? -- and they knew I was coming to ask them difficult questions about something that they hadn’t talked to anyone about. Of the six children, only one has been in therapy, as far as I know… So I knew it was going to be something that was uncomfortable for them. I decided I wanted to do the conversations individually with them at their homes. I wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. There were lots of moments where there were questions that surprised them, and they would get very emotional.

Carrie: Can you tell me about the editing process? How did you approach it after having these tough conversations with your family members?

Adrianne: I had 20 hours plus of tape. It wasn't about having their grief on display. I didn't want to include a couple moments where you hear someone's voice kind of crack a little. One of those moments was my dad, and I think the interview with my dad was most difficult because I had access to my dad more often than my aunts and uncles. And I do remember moments in high school or college trying to ask him about Grandma, and he just couldn't do it. He would leave the room and couldn't really answer my question. So identifying it as a source of his pain was what inspired me to try to do this project with them. And for some reason, I thought, I wanted to only record audio in these because I started thinking of the camera almost as a weapon, or aggressive in this way. I didn't want to catch the stories I was asking people to tell on tape because I could feel how vulnerable they were. I think a lot of us are self conscious about if we were to fall apart or start crying, especially if it's someone within your family. I didn't want to capture that on camera, and I wanted to have them be most at ease.

For the interview with my dad, I set it up so that he was in a rocking chair and staring out a window as he was talking to me. I set up the mic so that he didn't have to actually even look at me because I thought it would be too hard for him to even face his daughter in this sort of way. I wanted him to just be able to say whatever came out.

it was a lot of work editing it down into what it ends up being. There's just so much going on, because personally, as I was making that film, I was in my own therapy. The Christmas that I was in production, my maternal grandmother killed herself. So both My grandmother's died by suicide and it was just mind blowing and heart breaking to have that happen to the woman who was my cookie baking grandma or whatever, the woman that actually I grew up with.

The making of it, in the editing down, I could relate to my dad and his siblings in that I was… I was in grief. I had just lost my maternal grandmother, and, you know, she had been a very real character in my life at every important event, and my only living grandparent for most of my life. I was very close with her. So it was very tragic. But at the same time, had I not experienced that loss, I don't know how I would have handled editing down the interviews. I was in such grief myself. So yeah, It was a lot.

Carrie: Haver your Dad and your aunts and uncles, seen the final product?

Adrianne: Yes.

Carrie: How did they react? Were they impressed by it? Did it make them more sad or less sad?

Adrianne: I shared it with them before I had like a final cut because I wanted to refine it and honor their wishes to a certain degree in case anyone had any issue with it. I didn't want them involved in every step of the way because it's something that I was making. I had an aunt who asked if she could hear the uncut interviews of every sibling and I said no to that request because there were moments that I thought were sort of in confidence just between the two of us and my point of making this was not to have conflict arise, it was more, how can you bring a group together? Who has never dealt with a loss? And, you know, how can you help them grieve something that happened so long ago, but has shaped them in such a profound way.

I didn't want to give them full access to all the interviews, but when I showed them the final cut, I think they were very surprised. I think they were all very moved by it. This was something that they didn't even know about each other. Even though they were very close, and they talked to each other quite often, they didn't talk about their mom. I remember my aunt calling up her sister saying, What did you say for Adrianne's project? So it started this dialogue, almost a sort of, like, hidden agenda and like, they can use Adrianne’s project, you know, as the way to say, how did you feel when mom died, or what were you going through. It opened up this conversation for them. that I think has made them feel closer.

Carrie: Yeah, that's great. I'm glad that your project was able to do that. You mentioned that you don't like to have the visual aspects. Because you didn't film any of them during the interview process, how did you go about finding visuals that you wanted to show on screen without compromising their emotional issues and this situation that they were going through?

Adrianne: I had some family home movies that I was working with, and then some of them were just found home movies as well. I was interested in using visuals of the period, when my grandmother was raising her children, and what era that would have been (The 50s and 60s). Some of them are family reels, and some of them are from a collection that I had started making of found home movies. I work for Rick Prelinger now at the Prelinger Archives, and I work with home movies every day. It's been a longtime fascination, since being little, and trying to be an investigator into my grandmother's life by way of photos and home movies.

Carrie: In this situation, for Too Soon Too Late, obviously, you were emotionally attached to the making and production of it. Do you find yourself being emotionally attached to a lot of the films or all of the films that you make?

Adrianne: I'd say I am attached to most all of them that involve interviews and talking about true stories or people's lives. It's an emotional process for me as well as the person that I'm working with, or people. However, if it's something like a commissioned work or something that's for a gallery, like the film I sent you -- Decomposition -- that's not as personal, but it's what I'm interested in. There's a certain amount of energy, but it's less emotional.

Carrie: Awesome. So, let's talk about Decomposition for a second. This film was a little confusing to me because at the beginning, it was talking about society, shopping, and waste; Then how everything comes back from fungi and how ‘fungi inherited the Earth’. While I was watching it, I didn't know the exact premise of it, so I was hoping you'd be able to elaborate for me.

Adrianne: It's a strange little piece. It was commissioned by Termite TV, which is an experimental TV program in Philadelphia. Termite TV is a very experimental based program and so a lot of their segments are just strange and kind of abstract. A friend and former classmate of mine from Temple University film days was curating this episode about trash and asked if I would make something and I said sure. I had been really into mushrooms at the time and was just fascinated by how Paul Stamets, who’s quote is at the end, was using mushrooms to basically do environmental remediation, and cleanup at oil spills. I just had this idea that mushrooms might be the thing that saves us, or saves the world, at least whether we're here or not. I wanted to do something experimental with that.

Carrie: Oh okay, that makes a lot more sense. I want to ask more about it because it interested me and now, knowing the concept, I like it. When you were coming up with the animation and the visuals and the design aspect of it, what was the process like? And was your old classmate the mycologist? Or-?

Adrianne: No, he was the curator of the episode. He was curating that episode and asked if I would make something and I wanted to collaborate with Brian because I knew I wanted to do a certain amount of animation in it. The mycologist is Paul Stamets, and I've only met him at conferences. I'm a fan of his research and work. But coming up with the visuals, I think it was, it was just a lot of like a brainstorming session.

Decomposition was very much a collaboration with Bryan. And now we're thinking about different environmental disasters and tying it into our works because there's just a disposable nature and how that was tying in with trash. And I actually used a fair amount of footage from our collection. Some of the brainstorming was just sort of graphic matches of like, you know, thinking, oh, Tupperware kind of looks like a mushroom cap.

During this time, I was feeling like mushrooms were going to be important. I still feel this way, and I think mushrooms are going to be a really important way in which we remediate some of the environmental destructions that we've done. And they're going to be much more present in packaging and material objects, like mushroom leathers.

Carrie: I'm gonna go back to when you were talking about your work at the Prelinger archives. I read very briefly about what you guys do there, but will you explain what your job is and what your goals are at this job?

Adrianne: So Rick Prelinger is an independent film collector, and he founded the Archives in 1982. It was in New York at the time, and now it's based in the Bay Area, San Francisco and the East Bay by way of the Internet Archive. In the early 2000s Brewster Kahle, the founder of Internet Archive, invited Rick to host his collection on archive.org. But he became quite known for this collection of thousands of orphan films. He was saving these films and they might have been films that universities or libraries were getting rid of or films that he would find at estate sales. Sometimes they were films that were being thrown out. The Bay Area has a long tradition of dumpster diving to save celluloid.

At the Archive, I handle a lot of the films. I'm primarily working with home movies right now, which are the most fascinating to me. I work with Super 8mm, Regular 8mm, 16 mm and sometimes 35 mm films. I digitize and color grade, and in certain cases I restore them and repair old splices. Some of these films are very old, and some of them are very fragile. I'm not a trained archivist, but I love working hands on with film.

Rick is someone that I've known about since when I was an undergrad at Temple. I knew of his collection, and it was just sort of serendipitous to meet him after I moved out here and to eventually work with him. To be able to work with home movies, these artifacts that have fascinated me since I was quite young, is such a dream. I’m endlessly fascinated by these personal documents. To study families and to see the way that we record ourselves, it really interests me.

Carrie: How long does it normally take to restore some of these film canisters that you have gotten your hands on?

Adrianne: It really depends on the condition.

[Adrianne grabs some film from a table behind her]

See what I have here right now is in fairly good condition. I would have prepared some more examples, but if it's something very old, and it has vinegar syndrome, it becomes very brittle.

There's different things that have to be done before the film can be run through the scanner. A lot of these must be handled with care or the film will be destroyed. This is especially true for home movies compared to educational films that have multiple copies. For home movies, they most often, if not always, are the camera original. So it becomes a little more important to take extra care of them and to not run them through the scanner if they're likely to snap. But I'm curious, have you had the chance to work with real film in any of your classes yet?

Carrie: Unfortunately I have not gotten to work with film in any of my classes. The closest I've come to a film is having a disposable camera film developed, and they'll pack the negatives from it in the envelope with my photos; That's always really fun. But I've never gotten the chance to work on or hold a roll of film. But working with actual film sounds very interesting to me. In the future I hope to learn the process of development and how it goes from photos to a movie.

Adrianne: Yeah… it's amazing to me that there's a lot of film schools that no longer teach it. But I think that if a lot of film students, even if it was just a section of a course, even just to get your hands on film, I think a lot of the history, a lot of the mechanics of film and filmmaking would make a lot more sense. And there's also something kind of magical about it, too.

Carrie: I assume the footage in your At the Edge film was found via these archives?

Adrianne: Mm hmm.

Carrie: During the process of making that short, what was the ideal format you were looking for? Were there specific home movies that you wanted to incorporate because this short was displayed in a vertical format?

Adrianne: Yes, that film comes directly out of the work that I've been doing here. When I'm digitizing a film, you know- hold on this might be helpful to have a visual, I'm a visual person.

When I was scanning these films - I will show you the sprocket holes here - and so on a lot of the home movies there is a photographic bleed. There's an image in between the sprocket holes and so that film comes out as this heartbreaking moment. I'm cropping the film in here to prepare it for a digital file, but the beautiful image is stuck in this purgatory in between space, and there's a lot of what I would call ‘photographic information’ in there that's lost. Sometimes it's never revealed depending on which way that camera moves. And so I think a lot of my work has to do with hidden spaces. So At the Edge was made for a gallery, but then it did screen a single channel, like at screenings or festivals, but it was made as more of an installation that you would view in an art space. Just the strip that's in between the sprocket holes. Sometimes you don't even know if the person who's filming it was privy to it depending on if they're really focused through the viewfinder. When anyone was playing the film back in a projector, for their own home viewing, they weren't seeing that image because it's between the sprocket holes. The way cameras and projectors work by using those sprocket holes, the teeth, to move through the camera or the projector and so part of the image gets taken out. I was just interested in revealing this little hidden sliver of imagery.

Carrie: Yeah, so on those little pockets and on those film reels is there any sound that comes from them?

Adrianne: Um, there are some home movies that have sound, but most home movies do not. Some of them were made by actual filmmakers, or, you know, amateur filmmakers, there were whole whole clubs relating to that. So I think the ones that would have had sound are the very few that I've come across. We're probably coming from people who were, you know, more identified as filmmakers or like had access to different types of equipment. But a lot of the films, especially when you're getting into the newer films of like the 60s and 70s, and 80s, people were shooting super eight millimeter, and a lot of those cameras didn't have sound.

Carrie: In At the Edge, I was listening to it and it didn't have any coming from the film's. It was just music in the background. I am curious whether you had a reason for choosing that specific song, or if you just felt like it was fitting for all those reels.

Adrianne: That song? Well, I was highlighting another project through Internet Archive that's called the Great 78 Project. And it's a bunch of old 78’s that have been digitized. That particular song is one that has meant something to me, and I thought that it applied to this short. I can't really think of the lyrics and I'm not about to sing, but this person is reminiscing and trying to recall where and when they saw a person a certain way. I wanted this little sliver of film that had maybe never been seen by the filmmaker or person who recorded it themselves would have this little deja vu moment, and remember the rest of that scene. But the audio was just added after and it was manipulated in and the track was slowed down.

Carrie: Have you ever had someone whose archive you wanted to use in a project contact you and say ‘hey, that was my video!’ and they are able to tell you anything about it?

Adrianne: Well, I personally haven't had that experience yet, but I know that Rick has and he puts on an annual screening called Lost Landscapes of San Francisco. He's done Lost Landscapes of other cities as well. But San Francisco's the one that's been running the longest. He'll have people who are in the audience say ‘Oh my gosh, that's my aunt’ or ‘that's so and so’ and then they might get in touch with him. I've never had the experience of someone where it’s found materials. Normally, I know the sources of it, but the stuff that's found, I've never had anyone contact me and say, ‘oh, wow, that's my family’. If I ever do, I would ask them if they’d like to own it. There is this sort of strangeness about owning anything or collecting things, especially something so personal and private. I don’t want to take ownership of their films, but there's something that fascinates me in the connection that we have with families.

I've worked with thousands and thousands of home movies at this point, and there's a recipe or formula to them sometimes where- I can't begin to tell you how many birthday parties and graduations and Christmases that I've seen. I don't mind that at all, I think it says a lot about what we want to remember, or how we want to document ourselves. But, you know, there's all sorts of beautiful realness in these films that goes beyond the expected scenes.

I feel very lucky to be working with them, and Rick has one of the biggest private collections. So I get to see a lot.

Carrie: It’s always nice to be able to enjoy your work. Well, I'm gonna pivot back to your works, your film, Helga that I watched. I really liked this film, I thought it was beautiful, and the issue she faced in the film is still an issue today with the whole abortion debate. My first question was, you mentioned that Helga was your hairstylist, so I wanted to know how you started talking to her about her story? And then what made you decide ‘I want to make a film about you’?

Adrianne: Helga was a really important person in my life as a teenager. So, like a lot of teenagers who were also the eldest daughter in their family, I had some real mom issues that I was going through, a lot of butting heads, and Helga was someone who, because I hadn't really had a therapist at that point in my life, was kind of like my standard therapist. She was around my mom's age, a little older than her, and she was someone who allowed me to kind of, make peace with adults. She was different from other people that I had met, in that she listened to me and asked me questions.

We talked about her past, and I knew why she was living in Pennsylvania, and I thought that her story was one that I wanted to tell. I asked her probably while I was getting my haircut, and she was totally into it. I was so nervous, because I thought, ‘Oh, no, what do I do? What am I gonna do here?’ You had asked in an earlier email, ‘what's been your favorite project?’ and that's kind of why I sent Helga to you. This was the project that sort of changed the way I thought about filmmaking and I felt like I started developing my own style of storytelling.

Carrie: In your email, you mentioned that Helga was the first film that you submitted to a festival. What was going through your mind when you submitted it? What kind of emotions were you feeling when you submitted it?

Adrianne: I had screened other films at community screenings or in classes, but this was the first time where it had been accepted into multiple film festivals. And I was encouraged by some of my faculty because they thought it was a strong project, a strong film.

I went to a couple of the film festivals and wanted to do Q and A's and I remember feeling very, very nervous, but overall, I thought it was a really exciting experience. I still remember some of these conversations I had with people whether it was by way of the Q and A or them coming up to me afterwards, it not only spoke to women, but to people who had come to the country in different ways. There were a lot of people who had immigrated for various different reasons, and I never actually followed up with this, but I thought, oh, what a great series to work on a bunch of short personal stories.

Carrie: Would there be any advice that you could give to a student filmmaker like me, or some of my classmates who might not have entered a film festival or are afraid to do that?

Adrianne: Um, I think… just do it.

Festivals have changed a lot, even since I've been in school. There are so many opportunities for getting your work out there that didn't really exist when I was in film school myself. That's very exciting. I think the thing that I would encourage young filmmakers to do is to make works that mean something to them. Whether it's your personal story of your culture, where you come from, or work that you really care about. You have the freedom to tell whatever story you want. That's the beautiful thing about being a student and being in film school, you know, you can make whatever work you want to make at this point. Make things that you're interested in, even if it's something that is a fleeting hobby, or whatever. Put your heart in it. The Helga project meant so much to me, you know because for so many years she had played my therapist, this project was when the tables turned. I was sitting down with her and wanting to know about her story, and wanting to know about her struggles.

Carrie: wow, thank you. That’s very inspiring to hear, and I think a lot of students tend to forget that at the end of the day, their projects should be a reflection of themselves.

I guess our last bit of time is going to be about Hidden Rhythms. While each person was explaining their POV, everyone’s conception of time was different. There was one section specifically where it was spiraling, and I felt like it was spiraling for like 10 minutes. But then I was looking at the timestamps, I think it was only two minutes, maybe a minute and a half. My own concept of time was no longer existent, and I felt like I had been watching this short forever. I wanted to know how you were able to get that idea across and make it, so just, almost entrancing to watch. And also - what was the collaboration with Bryan like?

Adrianne: So Hidden Rhythms was made as a commission for a group show at SOMArts in San Francisco. Bryan and I were invited to make a work for the Timeless Motion exhibit. It was actually a performance piece that we collaborated with musician Jackie Jones and the visuals came from both digital animation that was projected over shadow puppetry, rudimentary animation using two overhead projectors. In the Bay Area, there is a lot of interest in expanded cinema. It's performance based film and video, and this project was a film performance. There's something about the combination of the live rudimentary shadow puppets and playing with textures, in combination with layering it on the digital animations that creates this kind of weird push & pull, and maybe that's what is that where you're kind of in an optical illusion.

Carrie: There were a lot of things happening on screen at one time, it was just this motion moving very slowly. And as the two minutes went on, it kept getting more and more dense and more packed in. I was just sitting there, like, staring at it trying to comprehend what was happening. So I had to rewatch it a couple times. I was like, Oh, my gosh!

Adrianne: Yeah, we were playing very much with the notion of time. A lot of the folks that were interviewed were talking about, you know, different accidents, or-- I've been in this situation before, like a car accident, where time slows down, you can almost stop the car with your mind like 20 times over.-- I was doing a lot of reading about the way that our brains record memories, especially in traumatic situations, and the reason why it slows down is your brain is recording even more information than you can process at the time. It memorizes twice as many snapshots of the scene. Reading all this, I thought it was really, really cool.

Carrie: That is so bizarre… I’ve definitely experienced that concept but I had never thought to research it and apply it to film. Thanks.

Um, I guess to wrap it all up, I would say how has your life changed from being a filmmaker? How do you think your life would have been different if you weren't working with film?

Adrianne: Oh, I mean… I’d be making something. I've always been making something you know, since before, I can remember. I've always been an artist and creator. When I was younger, it was much more painting and drawing and these types of things that I'll still do. I think just the arts in general have such a strong hold on my life as far as being able to express myself.

I feel compelled to make things almost to help me make sense of life. For example, my work on Too Soon Too Late, that was not only cathartic for my dad and his siblings, but it was a healing process for me too.

I can't imagine not making things. I always find myself coming back to film and video. And that's because it's the combination of images and sounds, and I feel like it's the ultimate medium. I feel like I think in story, and I think stories are how we relate to each other. I believe stories are really powerful, and they're especially powerful when they're true and filled with vulnerability. Honestly, I probably would be a therapist, actually. I'm guessing maybe, just from my own experiences, if I was the same person, and I wasn't making film and art, I would maybe have become a therapist.

Carrie: You know… that means you could follow in Helga’s footsteps?

Adrianne: Yeah, maybe a hairstyling therapist.

Carrie: My final question! I found your information via a feminist filmmaking database. So I'm wanting to know how or why you consider yourself to be a feminist filmmaker?

Adrianne: Well, I think because I consider myself a feminist, and no matter what I am doing, I'd be a feminist -- you know, a baker or candlestick maker -- I'm interested in telling stories about women's lives, about my own, the women I come from, women's history and how it's been overlooked. Often, there are a lot of hidden histories and missing histories. For instance, different people have been left out of history, and I think women's history as a whole has a lot of holes in it, and I think I'm devoted to making works that share some of those histories and stories. The work that I'm working on right now is about women's reproductive health history and how it relates to my maternal grandmother's story. I think I've just always been interested in the women I come from, and you know, the fact that I'm a woman and those are the stories that I'm most interested in.

Carrie: I love that. I think that by telling these stories and creating these shorts in your own style, and even from your own personal POV, creates a great piece of art that represents Feminist Media. I think that the concept of female empowerment within media is beginning to make its way into mainstream media so we have something to look forward to. (Hopefully)

Adrianne: Absolutely, I agree.

Carrie: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today and telling me all this! It was honestly amazing and very informative.

Adrianne: Oh, it's been so nice to talk with you!