COOL HANDS, WARM HEART

by Su FRIEDRICH
1979 / 16mm / b&w / silent / 1S / 16' 00

The film begins with a series of events on a crowded outdoor market street. Women on stages perform “private” rituals: shaving legs and armpits, fixing their hair, etc. A woman tries to disrupt their “work.” She struggles to set herself apart from them, to resist the forces of habit, but gradually becomes more involved than she is willing to admit. Although she sets in motion a chain reaction of rebellion, she’s unable to keep the momentum going. She stops before carrying it to the logical conclusion and ends up on the stage herself.

“Building on proverbs, metaphor, and the principles of a radical feminist imagination, Su Friedrich creates a world in which women’s private rituals become public spectacles. Filmed in Super 8 on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, COOL HANDS, WARM HEART works through questions of danger, attraction, violence, and ultimately the transformative power of bonding between women. Friedrich is able to draw on her training in avant-garde cinema as well as her background as a street photographer. In this work, she combines the two sets of concerns into an unusually original vision, re-imagining public space as a sort of Cool World inhabited by women of daring.” – B. Ruby Rich

2 PRINTS IN DISTRIBUTION


distribution format DCP on server (SMPTE 2K)
screen 4/3 (single screen)
speed 30 fps
sound silent
rental fee 68,00 €

distribution format Digital file on server (SD)
screen 4/3 (single screen)
speed 29,976 fps
sound silent
rental fee 68,00 €