NSEW 2012
Distributed by Vanessa Renwick, 3727 NE 11th Ave., Portland, OR 97212; 503128814341
Produced by Vanessa Renwick
Directed by Vanessa Renwick
DVD , color and b&w, 147 min.
College - General Adult
Experimental Cinema, Short Films, Installations
Date Entered: 04/03/2018
Reviewed by Barbara J. Walter, Longmont Public Library, Longmont, COVanessa Renwick and Bill Daniel have spent most of their lives looking at the things that most of us won’t. In their films, videos, photographs and installations, key subjects include prostitutes, Satanists, wild animals, hobo artists, squatters, people who are crazy, in the process of giving birth, dying and mocking abortion protesters with cruel accordion songs.
– Camela Raymond, “Two For the Road,” Organ Review of Arts, no. 8 Nov-Dec 2003
Launched several years ago with a Kickstarter campaign, NSEW documents a career spanning several decades with 25 of Renwick’s best films and videos, a body of work she describes as “raw, beautiful, ugly, hilarious, profound and inspiring.”
Renwick, an independent filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon, is known for her experimental and documentary films as well as photography, sculpture and installations. Her work “reflects an interest in place, landscape use and transformation, and relationships between bodies and landscapes” (layover: new work by Vanessa Renwick).
In the short films compiled here Renwick uses a wide variety of techniques: found footage overlaid with freshly-composed soundtracks, audio-visual journaling, animation mixed with live-action, direct animation and more to tell stories that astound, amuse and disturb.
Extras include her films Mine, The Ugly Movie, Warning, an excerpt from Lovejoy, plus video documentation of several of Renwick’s recent installations: “Hunting Requires Optimism,” “Medusa Smack” and “Full On Log Jam.”