Reviews and Written Interviews

From this page you can download PDFs of newspaper and magazine reviews, written interviews, and chapters or sections from books or journal articles.

There’s a separate section for the complete books published about my work, as well as a documentary film about them, which can be found on the About page.
There’s a separate page for VIDEO interviews.
Any writings by me are on a separate page, SF texts.

The films are listed in alphabetical order. Click on a title below and it will take you to that film.
When a text discusses more than one film, the entry is cross-listed under each title.
At the end is a section of reviews that discuss a group of films.

I teach, so I know how it goes: We make scans of book chapters (or websites…) without paying copyright or publication fees. I encourage you to buy the books from which these excerpts are taken, and if any author wishes me to remove their excerpted piece from this list, please contact me.

REVIEWS ABOUT A SPECIFIC FILM

But No One

Cinetracts 5/10/20

Cool Hands, Warm Heart

Damned If You Don’t

“Filmmaker Experiments with Sex and Religion” by David Ehrenstein, The Herald Examiner, 1987

“Experimental Bent” by Amy Taubin, The Village Voice, September 15, 1987

“A Queer Kind of Film: The First Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival” by Donna Minkowitz, The Guardian, September 16, 1987

“A Laying On of Images” by Andrew Rasanen, Bay Windows, November 5-11, 1987

“A Queer Kind of Film” by Jan Stuart, Film Comment, November-December 1987

“Lasting Evidence: Women in the Director’s Chair” by Ramona Curry, Afterimage, May 1988

“Girl Crazy” by Martha Gever, The Independent, July 1988, pp. 14-18

“When Form Takes as Many Risks as the Content” by Katharina Sykora, Frauen und Film, Vol. 46, February 1989

“Commentary: Queer Comes the Bride” by Mark Lipton, Canadian Journal of Communication, 2006

“Riot in Girls Town: Remaking, Revising, and Redressing the Teenpic” by Barbara Jane Brickman, Journal of Film and Video, WINTER 2007, Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 20-36

Benedetta Carlini – First Lesbian Nun Storyposted by Censor Librorum, Nihil Obstat, Oct 13, 2020

A WRITTEN INTERVIEW:

“Damned If You Don’t: An Interview With Su Friedrich” by Scott MacDonald, Afterimage, Vol. 15, #10, May 1988, pp. 6-10

CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS:

“Transgressive Cinema: Lesbian Independent Film” in Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema, by Andrea Weiss, Jonathan Cape Publishers, London, 1992, pp. 155-161

“An Unrequited Desire for the Sublime: Looking at Lesbian Representation Across the Works of Abigail Child, Cecilia Dougherty and Su Friedrich” by Liz Kotz in Queer Looks: Perspectives on Gay and Lesbian Film and Video, edited by Martha Gever, John Greyson and Pratibha Parmar, Routledge Press, 1993, pp. 86-102

“Discourse Intercourse” in Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies by Chris Straayer, Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 210-213

“Feminist Makeovers: The Celluloid Surgery of Valie Export and Su Friedrich” by Chris Holmlund in Play It Again, Sam, ed. by Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal, U. of California Press, 1998, pp. 217-237

“Su Friedrich’s Swimming Lessons” in Framed: Lesbians, Feminists and Media Culture by Judith Mayne, University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 193-211

“Revival and Appropriation” in Black Narcissus by Sarah Street, I. B. Taurus Press, London, 2005, pp.75-84

Adventures of Perception: Cinema as Exploration by Scott MacDonald, University of California Press, 2009

Edited By: The Companion film

First Comes Love

From the Ground Up

Gently Down the Stream

Gut Renovation

“Condo Boom, Neighborhood Bust: Filmmaker Su Friedrich documented the tragic gutting of her historic Brooklyn neighbourhood” by Serafin LaRiviere, XTRA! Canada’s Gay and Lesbian News, 10/26/2012

“In Theatres: Gut Renovation” by Basil Tsiokos, What (Not To) Doc, 3/5/2013

“Another ‘Authentic, Historic’ Williamsburg” by Gary M. Kramer, Gay City News, 3/4/2013

“‘Gut Renovation’: There Goes the Neighborhood” by Susanna Locascio, Hammer to Nail, 3/4/2013

“A Work in Progress, From the Inside Out” by Stephen Holden, The New York Times, 3/5/13

“Looking at Brooklyn’s Gentrification Through Two New Films” by Nathan Kensinger, Curbed.com, 3/7/2013

“Gut Renovation” by Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist, 3/7/2013

“Su Friedrich on Gut Renovation by Brandon Harris, Filmmaker Magazine, 3/8/13

“For Good or Bad, Watching Williamsburg’s Transformation” by Elizabeth H. Harris, The New York Times, 3/11/13

online–“For Good or Bad, Watching Williamsburg’s Transformation” by Elizabeth H. Harris, The New York Times, 3/11/13–same as the above, but also with a video interview)

“To Do: March 6-20, 2013: Twenty-five things to see, hear, watch, and read.” NY Magazine

“Gutting Home: ‘Gut Renovation’ Takes on Gentrification in Williamsburg” by Bryan Koenig, The Brooklyn Ink, 3/11/13

“‘Gut Renovation,’ Domino Sugar Factory, and the Redevelopment of Williamsburg” by Cea Weaver, The SurRealEstate, 3/11/2013

“‘Gut Renovation’: Jackhammers in Brooklyn” by Cynthia Fuchs, Popmatters, 3/12/2013

“‘Gut Renovation’ Documents Sweeping Change in Williamsburg” by Jason Andrew, Bushwick Daily, 3/12/13

“Film Review: ‘Gut Renovation’” by Ronnie Scheib, Variety, 3/13/13

“Where the Artist Is” by Armond White, City Arts, 3/13/13

“Raw Anger Permeates a New Film About Gentrification in Williamsburg, Brooklyn” by Sarah Goodyear, The Atlantic, 3/2013

“Gentri-film-cation: Brooklyn’s filmmakers turn the lens on development” by Eli Rosenberg, The Brooklyn Paper, 3/27/13

“The Idea of Freedom” by Stuart Klawans, The Nation, 4/10/13

“4 Films to See Before We Drown” by Janyce Stefan-Cole, The WG News + Arts, 4/16/2013

“Su Friedrich’s ‘Gut Renovation’ returns—this time in Dumbo Brooklyn, at the reRun” by James vanMaanen, Trust Movies, 4/18/2013

“Neighborhood Watch: Su Friedrich Follows the Evolution (and Devolution) of Brooklyn for ‘Gut Renovation’” by Jennifer Wolfe, Creative Planet Network, 6/25/13

S.F. DocFest—‘Gut Renovation,’ ‘F**k for Forest,’ ‘The Mayor’” by Peter Wong, BEYOND CHRON, 6/6/13

WRITTEN INTERVIEWS (see also the Video Interviews page):

“Berlinale interview: Su Friedrich” by Anka Botzoman, Ex Berliner, 2/11/2013

“Gentrification in Williamsburg: Is Your Neighborhood Next?” by Kristin Iversen, The L Magazine, 2/26/13

“Gut Renovation’s Su Friedrich: The experimental filmmaker big ups a disappearing Brooklyn in her latest personal documentary” by David Fear, Time Out New York Q&A, 3/5/2013

“Q&A with Filmmaker Su Friedrich” by Carlos Segura, Cinespect, 3/6/2013

Newsmaker: Su Friedrich: “Filmmaker Su Friedrich discusses Gut Renovation, a personal and impassioned documentary about the transformation of a Brooklyn neighborhood” by Dante A. Ciampaglia, Architectural Record, 3/6/2013

“Williamsburg Gentrification: The Movie!” by Rebecca Fishbein, Gothamist, 3/6/2013

“In Conversation: It’s Alright, Williamsburg (I’m Only Bleeding)” by Cynthia Lugo, The Brooklyn Rail, March 2013

“Gut Renovation” by Claudia Steinberg, BOMB Magazine, March 2013

“The Hot Seat: Su Friedrich”, Brownstoner, March 2013

“Gut Renovation, and an interview with Su Friedrich” by Celeste Ramos, Projection, March 1, 2013

The Head of a Pin

Hide and Seek

I Cannot Tell You How I Feel

The Odds of Recovery

Practice Makes Perfect

Rules of the Road

Scar Tissue

Seeing Red

Sink or Swim

“Experimental Visions” by Janice Berman, New York Newsday, September 29, 1990

“A Modernist Approach to Biography” by Caryn James, The New York Times, September 30, 1990

“It’s Not Exactly ‘Father Knows Best’ in Friedrich’s ‘Sink or Swim’” by Jonas Kover, Observer-Dispatch, November 15, 1990

“Intelligence, Grace and Visual Power” by Warren Sonbert, Bay Area Reporter, January 31, 1991

“Daddy’s Girl” by Fred Camper, The Chicago Reader, February 8, 1991

“Daddy’s Girl” by Fred Camper, The Chicago Reader, February 8, 1991 (the same one, but online)

“Life with Father” by J. Hoberman, Premiere, December 1991

“Sink or Swim” by Michael Zryd, Senses of Cinema, July 2000

“Sink or Swim (Su Friedrich) ALPHA ET OMEGA D’UNE IDENTITE” by Frédérique Devaux, Tausend Augen, 2001

“Sink or Swim” by Joanna Chlebus, The Feminist Review online, April 23, 2007

“Towards the Ethnography of Filmic Places” by Rebecca Savage, 2012

“A Poetics of Subtraction: The Autobiographical Films of Frampton, Tarkovsky, and Álvarez” by Alexander B. Joy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Doctoral Dissertation, March 2017

“The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, April 19-25” by Aaron Cutler, BKMag.com, April 19, 2017

“Sink or Swim” by Chris Shields, Screen Slate, August 2019

“Nuevas reglas en la Carretera—Radicales Libres. Su Friedrich” by Elena Oroz, 2020

“Playback: Su Friedrich’s ‘Sink or Swim'” by Angelo Madsen Minox, IDA Documentary Film Magazine, 2/27/2023

WRITTEN INTERVIEWS:    

“Daddy Dearest: Su Friedrich Talks About Filmmaking, Family and Feminism” by Scott MacDonald, The Independent, December 1990, pp. 28-34

“An Interview with Filmmaker Su Friedrich” by Sam McElfresh, American Federation of the Arts Newsletter, Autumn 1991, pp. 4-5

“Su Friedrich, (1954 – )” by Erin Trahan in Independent Female Filmmakers: A Chronicle Through Interviews, Profiles and Manifestos, ed. Michele Meek, Routledge Press, 2019

“Su Friedrich Reflects on 30 Years of ‘Sink or Swim’” by Robert Delany, Split Tooth Media, October 2, 2020

“‘Sink or Swim’: A Reel Rap Tribute” on Split Tooth Media, October 2, 2020

CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS + JOURNAL ARTICLES:    

“From Zygote to Global Cinema Via Su Friedrich’s Films” by Scott MacDonald, Journal of Film and Video 44.1-2 (Spring-summer 1992), pp. 30-41

“The Influence of Psychoanalytic Ideas on Editing,” chapter 12 in Techniques of Film and Video Editing, by Ken Dancyger, 2nd ed., Focal Press, 1996

“Domestic Ethnography and the Construction of the ‘Other’ Self” by Michael Renov in Collecting Visible Evidence, ed. by Michael Renov and Jane Gaines, University of Minnesota Press, 1999, pp. 140-155

“Su Friedrich’s Swimming Lessons” in Framed: Lesbians, Feminists and Media Culture by Judith Mayne, University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 193-211

“Sink or Swim” in Left In the Dark by Stuart Klawans, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002, pp. 29-32

“The Violence of Desire in Avant-Garde Films” by Maureen Turim in Women and Experimental Filmmaking, ed. by Jean Petrolle and Virginia Wright Wexman, U. of Illinois Press, 2005, pp. 71-90

“Leslie Thornton, Su Friedrich and Abigail Child: No More Giants” by William C. Wees in Women and Experimental Filmmaking, ed. by Jean Petrolle and Virginia Wright Wexman, U. of Illinois Press, 2005, pp. 19-43

“Key Scene: The Filmmaker’s Song in ‘Sink or Swim’” by David Sterrett in Movies: The Little Black Book, ed. by Chris Fujiwara, Cassell Illustrated, 2007, p. 625

“Good Girls: The Deconstruction of the Male Gaze Through the Reappropriation of Home Movies” by Beatriz Rodovalho, Archives in Movement: International Seminar on Archive Documentaries, 2017

“Radical Boredom: Feminist and Queer Politics of Affect in Experimental Film” by Johanna Renard in Nothing Personal ?! Essays on Affect, Gender and Queerness, edited by Omar Kasmani, Matthias Lüthjohann, Sophie Nikoleit and Jean-Baptiste Pettier, 2022

The Ties That Bind

“New York International Film Festival” by Barbara Kruger, Artforum, November 1983

“History Now: The Ties That Bind” by Harvey Nosowitz, The Chicago Reader, October 1984

“Serious Fun” by David Edelstein, The Village Voice, April 1985

“From Zygote to Global Cinema Via Su Friedrich’s Films” by Scott MacDonald, Journal of Film and Video 44.1-2 (Spring-summer 1992), pp. 30-41

“The Ties That Bind” by Patricia Ethelwyn Lang, The Feminist Review online, April, 2007

“In New York, Two Films Showcase Opposite Sides of the Holocaust’s Intergenerational Trauma” by Daniel Witkin, The Forward, February 2, 2018

“These 1980s Documentaries Tell the Story of the Holocaust from a Female Point of View” by Erin Schwartz, Vice, Feb 8, 2018

WRITTEN INTERVIEW:         

“Damned If You Don’t: An Interview With Su Friedrich” by Scott MacDonald, Afterimage, Vol. 15, #10, May 1988, pp. 6-10

CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS + JOURNAL ARTICLES: 

“Su Friedrich: The Ties That Bind” in Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies, by Scott MacDonald, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993, pp. 102-111

“Motherhood and History” in Cinematernity, by Lucy Fischer, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 193-198

“The Violence of Desire in Avant-Garde Films” by Maureen Turim in Women and Experimental Filmmaking, ed. by Jean Petrolle and Virginia Wright Wexman, U. of Illinois Press, 2005, pp. 71-90

“Pushing the Boundaries of the Historical Documentary: Su Friedrich’s 1984 ‘The Ties That Bind’” by Louise Spence and Esin Paça Sengiz, in Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, July 18, 2012

Today

GENERAL ARTICLES, WRITTEN INTERVIEWS + CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS

“N.Y. Independent Cinema” by Berenice Reynaud, Fuse, Summer 1985

“Reappropriations” by Scott MacDonald, Film Quarterly, Winter 1987/88, pp. 34-42

“Avant-Garde Film: Cinema as Discourse” by Scott MacDonald, Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 40, #2, Spring 1988, pp. 33-42

Et pourtant, elles tourne” by Berenice Reynaud, 24 Images Magazine, #53, Jan-Feb 1991

 “Cowboys in the Kingdom of Shadows: The Soviet Flaherty Seminar” by Dierdre Boyle, Documentary.org, December 1, 1991

“Fractured Fairytales and Experimental Identities: Looking for Lesbians in and around the Films of Su Friedrich” by Chris Holmlund, Discourse 17.1, Fall 1994, pp. 16-46

“It’s Not As Bad As You Think: A Spoonful of Experimental Cinema (from the Plate of Su Friedrich)” by Alex MacInnis, Focus Magazine, Vol. 15, 1995, pp. 76-85

“Friedrich, Su” by Michael Zryd and Lynn Bell, in Senses of Cinema: Great Directors, December 2002

“Midlife Fury, Glowing in Glorious Red” by Stuart Klawans, The New York Times, September 24, 2006

online version–“Midlife Fury, Glowing in Glorious Red” by Stuart Klawans, The New York Times, September 24, 2006

“Wisdom of Dreams” by Ioannis Mookas, Gay City News, Sept. 28-Oct. 2, 2006

“The Films of Su Friedrich: Outcast Films DVD Release” by William C. Wees, SensesOfCinema.com, November 2006

 “In Response to the AFI: Top 100 American Films by Women Directors” by Erin Hill and Brian Hu, Mediascape, 2007

“Su Friedrich is Seeing Red” by Andrea Richards in MAKE/SHIFT, Fall/Winter 2007-2008, pp. 40-41

“Building the House of Memory” by Caitlin Casiello, The Arts Paper, June 8, 2018

“Su Friedrich”–A review (in Chinese) about a retrospective in 2018 at the Women Make Waves International Film Festival in Taiwan

“Il magistero di Maya Deren: Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer y Su Friedrich” by Martina Villani   2021

“Das Kino, die Wirklichkeit und ich (II): Heftige Bindungen” by Esther Buss, Filmdienst.de, May 14, 2021

“Crucial Viewing: Su Friedrich at the Gene Siskel Film Center” by Tom McCormack, Kat Sachs, Ben Sachs, Cinefile, 9/7/2023

“La Filmoteca descubre la filmografía de Su Friedrich”, CulturPlaza, April 3, 2024

“La Filmoteca Valenciana inicia un ciclo sobre la directora vanguardista Su Friedrich” in Comunidad Valenciana, April 3, 2024

WRITTEN INTERVIEWS (see also the Video Interviews page):  

“Interviews With New York Filmmakers” by Stephanie Beroes, Cinematograph vol. 2, 1986, pp. 68-71

“Su Friedrich” interview in Critical Cinema: Volume Two by Scott MacDonald, University of California Press, 1992, pp. 283-318

“Damned If You Don’t: An Interview With Su Friedrich” by Scott MacDonald, Afterimage, Vol. 15, #10, May 1988, pp. 6-10

“Su Friedrich”, interview by Katy Martin for Art World Magazine (Yishu Shijie), Shanghai, China and The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA Shanghai), 2008

“Su Friedrich’s Cinema”, interview by Cecilie Muhlstein in NY Arts online, April 2008

 “Entravista con Su Friedrich” by Hector Oyarzun, ElAgenteCine.com, April 20, 2022

 “Entrevista Su Friedrich” by Daniela Urzola, Caiman (versión ampliada de Caimán CdC nº 187), March 27, 2024

CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS:

Screen Writings, by Scott MacDonald, University of California Press, 1995
(This has two scripts of mine which are also available in the “scripts” section of my site and a third script that only exists as text.)

“Culture As Fiction: The Ethnographic Impulse in the Films of Peggy Ahwesh, Su Friedrich, and Leslie Thornton,” by Catherine Russell in The New American Cinema, ed. by Jon Lewis, Duke University Press, 1998, pp. 353-378

Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia, ed. by Amy Unterberger, St. James Press, 1998

Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000 by P. Adams Sitney, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 419-420

“Su Friedrich: Breaking the Rules” by Janet Cutler in Women’s Experimental Cinema, ed. by Robin Blaetz, Duke Univ. Press, 2007, pp. 312-338

“Su Friedrich” in 501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers, ed. by Steven Jay Schneider, Barron’s Press, 2007, p.562

“Su Friedrich: ‘Giving Birth to Myself’” in Eyes Upside Down: Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson by P. Adams Sitney, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 296-320

“Art for the Future: From ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ to Art as a Way of Survival” (in Japanese) by Midori Matsui in Knowledge and Education for the Future: 11 Lectures for Surviving a World in Upheaval, 2018