Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe has been making experimental videos and films since 1984—exploring an edge between formal experimentation and personal/social issues. She has invented her own lexicon, using texts and visuals with quirky and surprising rhythms and associations. Her work asks us to look again at things we might have thought we knew already. [more]
All the videos and films listed below are available for sale or rental
Quicktime excerpts are available online.
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PEACE IS Experimental video incorporating texts returned by an online search for the text "peace is" as a meditation on the consciousness of the crowd at this moment in time. Made specifically for the “For Life Against The War! Again!” program organized by Lynne Sachs. September, 2006. 3:00 minutes. Available on DVD. Color, silent. More... |
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HOW STRONG THE CHILDREN 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. 1998. 28:00 minutes. Available in DV, 3/4", VHS - video. Color, mono sound. More... |
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IF SPRING, THEN HOPE, AND ALSO WINTER Video meditation on the death of a young life. A young girl is apparently dying or has been killed. A recording of parental responses to this death is repetitively re-recorded until the ambient sound included in each re-recording renders it an abstract sound. These recordings are used to process the images, creating an ambiguous and transformative sound-image relationship. Occasional texts allude to the difficulty of understanding death. 1997. 9:30 minutes. Available in 3/4", VHS - video. Color, mono sound. More... |
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EVERYONE MUST TIGHTEN THEIR BELTS A whimsical piece in which a late-night television interviewer attempts to get an unusally wordy guest (a labor relations expert of sorts) to explain the relationship between unemployment and inflation. The language is repetitive to the point of becoming almost abstract in its rhythms—setting up an interplay between the ideas and the aural pleasures of the text. Winner, DIRECTOR’S CHOICE, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1998 1997. 4:30 minutes. Available in 3/4", VHS - video. Color, mono sound. More... |
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QUEEN OF THE MIST Narrative video telling the story of Annie Edson Taylor—who was, in 1901, the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. A 63 year-old woman, Taylor met with hostility and a succession of betrayals rather than the fame and fortune P.T. Barnum’s long-standing challenge had led her to expect. Impressionistically combining archival material with re-enacted scenes, QUEEN OF THE MIST was made in collaboration with the poet Joan Murray and is based on her book of narrative poems of the same name. Winner, FIRST PRIZE, NARRATIVE, NAP Video Festival, 1997 Winner, DIRECTOR’S CITATION, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1997 1996. 29:00 minutes. Available in Beta SP, 3/4", VHS - video. Color, stereo sound. More... |
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LA BLANCHISSEUSE Meditative video suggesting possible roots of the tendency that still exists for women to take a greater responsibility than men for domestic work and nurturing. Images of a woman ironing that pay homage to impressionist paintings of laundresses, original and borrowed texts alluding to the “pull” for a woman to provide nurturing care for a family, and a meditative music soundtrack afford the viewer an opportunity to develop new and creative readings of images of women performing domestic work. Winner, DIRECTOR’S CHOICE, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1995 1993. 11:00 minutes. Available in Beta SP, 3/4", VHS - video. B/W. Stereo sound. More... |
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KEEP MOVING Structural film in which the everyday activities of a small environment are distilled in repetition. Two women walk, run and gaze across an industrial-looking street-end over which trains pass constantly. Small changes take place in the actions, the environment and in the treatment and use of the still and live images. Compositional relationships are explored. Winner, DIRECTOR’S CHOICE, Black Maria Film Festival, 1985 Winner, 3RD PRIZE, EXPERIMENTAL, Baltimore Int’l Film Festival, 1986. 1984. 10:00 minutes. 16mm film. B/W & color. Optical sound. More... |
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VENEO VIDEO VICEO Experimental video deconstructively examining issues relating to video, television, fictions, beliefs and the marketplace. Central to the work is the unlikely story of a woman who makes an aerobics tape which she hopes to market to the downtown punk scene. The dramatic continuity of the story is frequently interrupted by images of its characters recontextualized in portrait format and overlaid with a chorus of texts commenting on the construction of the believable video image. 1991. 55:00 minutes. Available in 1", Beta SP , 3/4" & VHS - video. Color; stereo sound. More... |
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CARS ARE LIKE A PARTY Color videopoem about the seductions of cars. Poem written and read by seven year-old, Mia Witte. 1996 2:20 minutes. Available in 3/4", VHS - video. Color, mono sound. More... |
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AFTER THE PAINT HAS DRIED Film in which street images, sounds and fragments of stories merge in constant states of transition, suggesting the process by which stories grow. Attention is captured, the storyteller revealed. Yet the outcome is ambiguous, reflecting the less than final understanding that knowing someone through their stories involves. Winner, DIRECTOR’S CITATION, Black Maria Film Festival, 1987 1986. 15:00 minutes. 16mm film. B/W; optical sound. More... |
Statement of Artistic Intent | Film/Video Exhibition History | Distribution | Press