From the Anne Charlotte Robertson Collection: Visiting Curators from the Harvard Film Archive

Nov. 17 - 7:30 pm

$8 Suggested

Curators in Attendance

Redeemer Lutheran Church
5341 NE 20th Ave

"Five Year Diary, Reel 1: The Beginning—Thanksgiving, November 3–December 13, 1981"

"Five Year Diary, Reel 23: A Breakdown and After the Mental Hospital, September 1–December 13, 1982"

Work Stills:

About This Screening

Anne Robertson’s unparalleled experimental Super 8 films delve deeply into personal filmmaking with humor and poignancy. Anne Charlotte Robertson (1949–2012) was a Boston-area Super 8 filmmaker who examined her life through an epic, obsessive film diary project, The Five Year Diary (1981–1997, approx. 33 hours). Anne, who began making films in 1976, attended Massachusetts College of Art (class of 1985) where she honed her filmmaking skills under the tutelage of another Super 8 master, Saul Levine. The films are characterized by an unflinching examination of the filmmaker’s life: her fears, her loves, her obsessions. Ms. Robertson was diagnosed with a few different mental disorders including manic-depressive bipolar, and went through several breakdowns and mental hospitals admissions. These experiences are closely recorded in the Diary film. Despite the depression snaking through Anne’s life, she brought self-awareness and humor to her films, and though intense, they are not, on the whole, bleak. —Liz Coffey, Harvard Film Archive Curators and archivists Liz Coffey, Laurel Gildersleeve, and Jeremy Rossen will be in attendance.

Program Details

November 17th

Magazine Mouth
United States, 1983, S8mm to digital, color, sound, 7 min.
Apologies
United States, 1986, S8mm to digital, color, sound, 17 min.
Five Year Diary, Reel 1: The Beginning - Thanksgiving, November 3 - December 13, 1981
United States, 1981, S8mm to digital, color, sound, 25 min.
Five Year Diary, Reel 23: A Breakdown and After the Mental Hospital, September 1 - December 13, 1982
United States, 1982, S8mm to digital, color, sound, 26 min.
My Cat My Garden and 9/11
United States, 2001, S8mm to digital, color, sound, 6 min.