Chicago Feminist Film Festival 2019 – Girls Grow Up Drawing Horses
A woman explores gender roles, heteronormativity, and the life of her deceased grandmother through horses and other visual metaphors.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer/Editor Joanie Wind
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
In December 2017, I flew to my hometown in Arizona for several weeks to say goodbye to my dying grandmother. After her passing, I returned with a bag of her scrap yarn and a deep longing to express what I knew was hiding behind her silent life. I had interviewed her a year before, but the footage was accidentally lost. I decided that I would make a mixed media painting inspired by a blanket I found with her yarn, which turned into a film about a painting about her blanket. The finished painting is shown at the end of the film credits. The result is a hard-to-label hybrid film that documents both her life and the making of the painting, while also exploring gender roles and heteronormativity.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
My film provides intimate accounts of my grandmother's life and my own that some will find relatable and others revealing. Aside from the personal, conceptual, and emotional content, though, it is visually enjoyable to watch. Undulating across the screen is a richly colorful and painterly visual collage punctuated by various moments of humor, claustrophobia, and poetry.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Quite literally, the film exposes personal feelings and accounts to describe universal themes relating to motherhood, societal expectations, heteronormativity, and the otherwise gendered lives of many women. It also touches on creativity and art-making as a way of coping ("making things with your hands is a way of processing trauma; color and texture are reasons to live").
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
Beginning as a very nebulous collection of memories, observations, and visual metaphors (both physical objects and ethereal impressions of color and horses), the film evolved during the editing process. This is where I visually and conceptually wove images and ideas into more coherent narratives. I originally intended to stick to documenting the creation of a mixed media painting, but the documentation chronicled more of my mental processes than it did painting and gluing and other physical processes.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Not too many people have seen it yet, but of those who have, some have said that they really connect with the poetic narration, and one person said that it brought her to tears.
I am excited to hear more feedback when the film shows at both the Chicago Feminist Film Festival and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
The extent that people connect with the narration – which is my voice – has surprised me a bit. I always manipulated my voice or left narration out of my films in the past because I felt embarrassed when hearing my own voice. It's like recording the perfect voicemail greeting and perpetually cringing or laughing at your own vulnerability. As it turns out, though, that is precisely what people connect to.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
My films are a form of communication for me. While they are cathartic for me to make, I also hope that they might be validating to other peoples' experiences.
Gender roles, motherhood, and heteronormativity are still so romanticized and culturally enforced that they are accepted as the only conceivable option by many people. I want people who feel disillusioned with, trapped in, and oppressed by this hegemony to know that they're not alone.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
While I've been making short films for several years now, I am very new to "the industry," and therefore not entirely sure how to best answer this question. I would welcome help in determining where my market is and how to best distribute my content, and I will certainly welcome film festival directors and journalists to come on board with my work.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
Ideally, I would like for this film to be embraced in a cross-disciplinary way. That is, I can see it fitting into art galleries, creative writing platforms, and film festivals/communities alike.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
What are the limits of horses, livestock, the taming and domestication of wild animals, and the commodification and exploitation of animals as metaphors for society's treatment of women? Is there any difference at all?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I am currently working on two other short films. I'm in the editing stages with one that deals more specifically with the body and commodification, and in the writing stages with one that deals with more universal themes of isolation and our relationship to the natural world.
Interview: February 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Girls Grow Up Drawing Horses
A woman explores gender roles, heteronormativity, and the life of her deceased grandmother through horses and other visual metaphors.
Length: 7:14
Director: Joanie Wind
Producer: Joanie Wind
Writer: Joanie Wind
About the writer, director and producer:
JOANIE WIND is a visual artist and filmmaker from Tucson, Arizona. She received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Eastern Michigan University in 2015. She now teaches art in the Detroit area and exhibits her work internationally.
Key cast: Joanie Wind (self)
Looking for: film festival directors, distributors
Instagram: @selfiesfromtheabyss
Website: www.joaniewind.com
Other: Vimeo
Funders: self-funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Chicago Feminist Film Festival/Chicago, IL - March 1, 2019; Ann Arbor Film Festival/Ann Arbor, MI - March 30, 2019