The Avant-Garde Masters program of the National Film Preservation Foundation has awarded Chicago Film Archives funding to photochemically preserve six short 8mm films by independent filmmaker JoAnn Elam.
Elam (1949 – 2009) was active in Chicago’s independent filmmaking community in the 1970s and ’80s, and helped establish Chicago Filmmakers in 1973. She shot over 200 8mm films, employing experimental shooting and editing strategies and engaging with issues of feminism, labor, and everyday spaces.
The six films that we have selected for preservation are a representative sample of the range of styles and subjects in which Elam was interested:
7/4/77 (1977, 5 min, color, silent)
Frenetically shot at a Fourth of July gathering, 7/4/77 showcases Elam’s striking ability to use 8mm to capture intimate details and create a unique visual cadence. Elam’s notes indicate this film was screened as part of “Close to Home,” her series of “films which look at the ordinary arts embedded in everyday life” (Chicago Filmmakers, “Cinema City,” Fall 1982).
A Country Mile (circa 1973, 4 min, color, silent)
Using multiple exposure and partially obscuring the lens, Elam turns a simple walk down a rural, wooded path into a mesmerizing journey seen through two wildly roaming eyes.
Still from Blizzard of ’79.
Blizzard of ’79 (1979, 5 min, color, silent)
Life goes on in the aftermath of the overwhelming snowfall of the famed Chicago Blizzard of 1979, as Logan Square residents shovel out their Chevys and letter carriers heroically trudge towards mailboxes. With a lyrical sensibility, Elam’s thoughtful eye examines the quotidian struggle of dealing with the force of nature in an urban environment.
Garden & Joe (circa 1980, 4 min, color, silent)
Gardening was an essential part of Elam’s life; she not only tended to her own, quite impressive, backyard garden, she also attained the status of Master Gardener and then helped Chicago communities develop gardens and landscape neighborhoods. Elam’s garden features prominently in many of her films, and here is captured with devotion and blended beautifully, through use of double exposure, with other elements of her home.
Still from Joe Cutting Tree.
Joe Cutting Tree (circa 1980, 4 min, color, silent)
Labor, particularly the everyday types of labor usually taken for granted, is central to many of Elam’s films. She had a wonderful way of using her camera to take such acts of labor and expose something of their essence. Here, through mesmerizing use of in-camera editing, she does just that with the act of her husband, Joe, trimming a tree.
Memphremagog (circa 1973, 4.5 min, color, silent)
Elam compresses and expands time, conjuring the feeling of hurling towards a distant destination by way of American back roads and the great warmth and calmness of arriving somewhere you belong. Also part of the “Close to Home” series.
Thanks to the National Film Preservation Foundation’s support, CFA will preserve these titles to 16mm film, making them significantly more accessible for exhibition and research. Colorlab will scan the 8mm originals to 4K to create Digital Intermediates; from the DIs, they will strike new 16mm polyester internegatives, answer prints, and release prints for each film.
We hope to exhibit the new 16mm release prints at venues across Chicago and the region, as well as lending the prints to qualified venues.
