Shellie Fleming
Directing
Biography
Michele Fleming’s films bring together most of the artistic disciplines with which she worked and combine the rhythmic observation of the world around her with references to other films and, most of all, a multitude of books; they feature work with the text on screen, portrayals of bodies and the alternating superimposition of colour and black and white. Fleming taught many filmmakers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago such as David Gatten, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Lee Jang-wook. She was also married to Zack Stiglicz and a good friend of filmmaker Will Hindle. Fleming sadly passed away in December 2013.
Known For
Fleming develops a personal visual language through repetition of particular allusions and imagery
Private Property (Public Domain)
“Like any worthwhile piece of art, Left-Handed Memories can be read several ways. Images of frames and framed materials recur. Pages of a dictionary flip by, and it is here that the viewer can see a reference to Will Hindle. Entry words echo his film titles - Billabong, Chinese Firedrill etc. A soft-focus female nude, reminiscent of an Edward Weston photograph, becomes increasingly scratched as the footage runs, a memento mori of the plastic material itself. Much, the film tells us, is beautiful, and much will be forgotten.” (Tom Whiteside)
Left Handed Memories
"I had an idea for quite some time for a film based on an essay by Lewis Thomas taken from a book that Will had lent me. Yes, the essay was ... I was sure … written just for me. It was called 'The Selves' […]" (SH)
The Selves
Strong poetic sensibility, interweaving intimate observations and numerous film and literary references
Devotio Moderna
Features "strange bird imagery" - Fred Camper
Ornithology
Voice-over (by Fleming's partner, Zack Stiglicz) combines narrative fragments about a solitary woman and excerpts from books on psychology to create a sense of everyday melancholy
Life/Expectancy
Shellie Fleming's first film
The Dream: A Neutral Necessity
Third film from Shellie Fleming
Other Voices, Other Views
Shellie Fleming's sixth film