Video Program:

Elliot Anderson, Unsanitized
Sarolta Jane Cump, California is an Island
Bill Domonkos, Poppy
Bug Davidson, Screen Tests
Dino Dinco, El Abuelo
Mitch Gould, This Beginning of Me
Bill Hsu, Glories, performance trailer
Charissa King-O'brien, Riva and Allison
Peter Max Lawrence, Queer in Kansas
B. Steady and the Lost Bois, Reading Rainbow
ZA Martonhardjono, Five Haikus for the New York City Subway
Jules Shendelman, Bathhouse Poetics

Riva and Alison
15 minutes
2010 (work in progress)
(Video screening at ATA)

Artist's Statement

“Riva and Alison” is a 15-minute cinéma vérité snapshot of two artists talking about their evolving careers and touching on themes such as beauty, disability culture, and queer/lesbian culture.

Alison Bechdel, cartoonist, author of “Dykes to Watch out for” and “Fun Home” visits Riva Lehrer, an award winning artist, who is getting ready to draw a portrait of Alison.

Both artists find themselves moving away from doing the work that made them famous – Alison lesbian/queer culture and Riva disability culture. Alison comments that she is not necessarily moving away from writing about a lesbian community but rather wants to write about everyday real life such as her relationship with her mom. Riva has received criticism for moving away from disability portraits after creating work with those themes for most of her career. The short film ends with images of Riva working on the portrait of Alison as Peter Pan and the final portrait.

-- Charissa King-O'Brien