Full Description
An example of Yiddish post-modernism, this "film classic" by fictitious Soviet film director Yevgeny Antinov (the alter ego of filmmaker Eleanor Antin) was "made" in Russia in 1926, when the new Soviet government still encouraged ethnic and Yiddish arts. In a Russian shtetl, a handsome poet falls in love with the daughter of a bourgeois merchant. But his love is undermined when a troupe of traveling Jewish players (headed by a tough, cigar smoking ballerina) holes up in town for the winter. The poet, along with the young people of the shtetl, are seduced by the bohemian life, while the town's religious elders are outraged. This story of conflict between tradition and modernity life is spiked with dybbuks, unwanted pregnancies, and power struggles between competing religious factions. Romance, comedy and drama take place amidst crowded markets, ancient graveyards, and artists' caravans.
Filmmaker Bio(s)
An artist/filmmaker working for many years in installation, photography, film, video, performance, drawing and writing, Antin has an international reputation. She has had one-woman exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, etc. as well as a major 30 year retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which published a book catalogue. She has created major installations at the Hirschhorn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. and the Jewish Museum in New York City, among others. She is represented in major collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, etc. As a performance artist she has appeared in venues around the world including the Venice Biennale and the Ford Theatre in Washington DC. Several of her mixed media,groundbreaking works such as "100 BOOTS", "CARVING; A Traditional Sculpture", "The Angel of Mercy", "Recollections of my Life with Diaghilev," "The King of Solana Beach", "The Adventures of a Nurse," are frequently referred to as classics of feminist, postmodern art. As an artist she is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York. Her books are BEING ANTINOVA (Astro Artz), ELEANORA ANTINOVA PLAYS (Sun & Moon) and a photo book 100 BOOTS (Running Press). She has made 9 videotapes, among them "Representational Painting", (1971), "The Ballerina and the Bum", (1973), "The Little Match Girl Ballet", (1975), "The Nurse and the Hijackers", (1977) and "From the Archives of Modern Art," (1989), (all tapes distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix). She has written, directed and produced narrative films, among them the feature, "The Man Without a World", (1991), (Berlin Film Festival, U.S.A. Film Fest., Ghent Film Fest., London Jewish., San Francisco Jewish, Women in Film, etc.), "The Last Night of Rasputin," (1989), which premiered with a live performance in a 2 week run at the Whitney Museum in N.Y., (both films distributed by Milestone Film & Video, N.Y.), "Music Lessons", 1997 ,and the filmic installations "Loves of a Ballerina, 1986, "Vilna Nights", 1993, and "Minetta Lane" 1995. Her most recent awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1997 and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Media Achievement Award in 1998. Antin has been a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at San Diego since 1975.
