Films

B/Side

"...few of the films, experimental or otherwise, display the visual confidence and sociopolitical torque of Abigail Child's meditation on homelessness, B/side, which is as modest and resonant as most alternative film is jejune." —Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice “B/side shows the other side of Reagonomics. Director Abigail Child combines documentary with fiction and smart wit in a poetic montage to present a complicated and heartfelt portrait of colonialism at home. These events take place only a mile from Wall Street. The public is forced to look, even as the position of the camera changes. Sometimes the camera is the bystander, at other moments it is the perspective of the homeless themselves.” — The Daily, Rotterdam Film Festival Child's B/side is a provocative exploration of the urban homeless, combining sensitive footage of their exterior situation and entering imaginatively into interior fantasies. Framed by footage of the encampment locally known as Dinkinsville on New York’s Lower East Side, where some of the homeless of Thompkins Square Park settled after the riots of June l991, the movie begins with the encampment's first night and ends with the fire and subsequent destruction of the lot in October of the same year. Applying rhythmic construction, poetic license and a generous eye to bodies in poverty, B/side documents a gritty vision of late 20th century urban life. Official Selection: Whitney Museum Millennial Show American Art 1950-2000, solo screening; London & Rotterdam - International Film Festivals 1996+ 97; Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial 1997; Oberhausen Film Festival Touring Package and Archive; Ann Arbor Film Festival Prizewinner; Osnabruck Experimental Film Festival; Museum of Modern Art N.York Cineprobe Featuring: Shiela Dabney, Ana Kohler, Fred Neumann, Pam Sneed Producer/Director/Camera/Editor: Abigail Child; Second Camera: Ethan Mass; Music Composition: Ikue Mori; Editorial Consultant: Nathanial Dorsky. Distribution Sources