By the Lake

An expressionistic, surrealistic portrait of a Latin American woman.

A bewitching, mysterious work of enveloping beauty, the film’s ominous title and a dedication to Anne Frank deeply inform our reading of its haunting subtext. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation, in 2009.

Chick Strand's SOFT FICTION is a personal documentary that brilliantly portrays the survival power of female sensuality. It combines the documentary approach with a sensuous lyrical expressionism. Strand focuses her camera on people talking about their own experience, capturing subtle nuances in facial expressions and gestures that are rarely seen in cinema. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2015.

An experimental film poem in celebration of life and visions. Techniques include live action, animation, montage and found images. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

Strand spent over twenty years documenting her friend Anselmo Aguascalientes’ life, eventually creating a stunning trilogy of films—Anselmo, Cosas de mi vida, and Anselmo and the Women—tender portraits that are also glimpses into poverty, resourcefulness, perseverance and patriarchy.

Intimate documentary about young women who make papier mache fruit and vegetables in a small factory in Mexico. They have a gringo boss, but the factory is owned by his Mexican wife. The focus of the film is on the color, music and movement involved, and the gossip which goes on constantly, revealing what the young women think about men.

Impressionistic surrealism in three acts. The approach is literary experimental with optical effects. There are three mental states that are interesting: amnesia, euphoria and ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who you are and wanting desperately to know. I call this the White Night. Euphoria is not knowing who you are and not caring. This is the Dream of Meditation. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who you are and still not caring. I call this the Memory of the Future. This is an autobiographical film funded by the American Film Institute.

Aztec romance and the dream of love. The anthropologist’s most human desire, the ultimate contact with the informant. The denial of intellectualism and the acceptance of the romantic heart, and a soul without innocence. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

A short piece of commercial work done by three legendary L.A. artists. This piece was shown on loop projectors in Sears stores to promote an exciting and new young ladies' clothing line. 16mm print preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

Loose Ends is a collage film about the process of internalizing the information that bombards us through a combination of personal experience and media in all forms. Speeding through our senses in ever-increasing numbers and complicated mixtures of fantasy, dream and reality from both outside and in, these fragmented images of life, sometimes shared by all, sometimes isolated and obscure, but with common threads, lead us to a state of psychological entropy tending toward a uniform inertness… an insensitive un-involvement in the human condition and our own humanity. —Chick Strand

Poetic surrealism. Approach is experimental in relationship of image and sound. A film about the loss of innocence and the search for the essence of the human spirit. Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship.

A Mexican flower seller’s story of personal tragedy is delicately illuminated in an intimate and moving act of portraiture that is both unsettling and liberating. In her final film, Chick Strand mixes brutal heartbreak and palpable joy into a transformative vision of dignity and vitality.

Filmed at Mission San Francisco de Guayo on the Orinoco River Delta in Venezuela, in 1965. A Franciscan nun and an Indian woman describe the Indian way of life before and after the arrival of the mission 20 years prior to the making of the film; their words are translated to English voice-over. They discuss marriage ceremonies, fishing, gender roles in work distribution and family responsibilities, shamanism and death rituals. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with National Film Preservation Foundation in 2011.

An educational film in which the positive benefits of Title 1 funded schooling are illustrated. Though a commissioned work, this film fully exhibits close-up camera work and remarkable, fluid editing.

A film poem using found film and stock footage altered by printing, home development and solarization. It is a film using visual relationships to invoke a feeling of flow and movement. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with National Film Preservation Foundation in 2011.

Chick Strand's first film, made while living in the Bay Area, features her young son Eric as a little boy traipsing through a mysterious landscape, perhaps pursued by the titular monsters. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation and Pacific Film Archive in 2009.