HOW STRONG THE CHILDREN
video by
experimental filmmaker and video artist
Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe

More images... | Quicktime Excerpts...

HOW STRONG THE CHILDREN is an experimental video in which the relationship of a mother with her two young daughters is examined—finding the terrain chaotic and hardly conforming to prior expectations. Weaving in and out through multi-linear and noisy layers, the mother interviews the daughters, one daughter interviews the mother, the daughters play together, the mother reprimands the daughters, they have breakfast and get ready for school and work together, the mother reads a poem, the daughters read a fairy story, nuclear reactors seem to be a part of it, Amelia Earhart makes appearances, texts refer to the musings of the mother—all these elements pile on top of one another in apparent chaos. But some ideas emerge, and one could leave without feeling uncomfortable about the chaos. The children, at least, are strong.

28:00 minutes © 1998
color/mono sound/DV; 3/4"; VHS (NTSC)

“Dense, elliptical, tender, and a bit disturbing, [How Strong The Children] is an intelligent and compelling work.”

- Amy Taubin, Village Voice, November 23, 1999

Selected Screenings:
The Millennium, New York, 1999
Black Maria Film and Video Festival (Winner, Director’s Citation Award), NY/NJ,1999
International Women’s Video Festival, Hamilton, New Zealand, 1999

Two Quicktime Excerpts from this video are viewable online:

avant-garde movie still 12-second excerpt in which the mother is heard to ask one daughter if she had time to play; admonishes another daughter not to touch (play with) “the camera”; tells one daughter not to shout, and hears from one daughter that “I’ll be the same kind (of mother)”. (668 K)
avant-garde movie still 15-second excerpt in which the mother is heard to tell one daughter “you won’t get on the computer, that’s for sure”; the same daughter is seen playing on a computer; another daughter is heard whispering “I can’t hear you” then repeating, loudly, the words “Sound, Noise”... (852 K)

HOW STRONG THE CHILDREN
was produced through Artist-in-Residency programs at
The Experimental Television Center Ltd.,
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
and
Downtown Community Television