Mary Jo Toles

A video essay that seeks to represent, study and pay homage to the North American filmmaker Cecelia Condit, covering all of her film work and video installation, portraying her through devices of semiotics, aesthetics and cinematographic language.

"Relating a tale told by a girl on a swing, Beneath the Skin explores the contrast between the impersonal horror of a news story heard on television and the involvement of the storyteller in a nightmare, which gradually becomes more familiar and commonplace as the tale unfolds. The straightforward approach of the teller is humorously or frighteningly contrasted by a bombardment of visual images which mock or intensify the macabre flavor of the work."