Screening

About Fighting Gravity: Films by Joanna Priestly

Year Released:

Multiple years

Genres:

Experimental

Metadata:

Directed by Joanna Priestley

"Joanna Priestley’s amazing body of animated films have deservedly earned their place in the pantheon of contemporary international animators. Inventively visioned, superbly crafted, and rich with insight into the physical and spiritual dilemmas that confront us all, each new work provides an unexpected pleasure."

–Bill Foster, Director, Northwest Film Center

Priestley has produced, directed and animated 24 award winning films about subjects dear to her heart: relationships, abstraction, plants, magic, menopause and prison.  She has had retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Center for Contemporary Art (Warsaw, Poland), American Cinematheque (Los Angeles, CA) and the Stuttgart Animation Festival (Stuttgart, Germany).

 THE PROGRAM

Voices (1985, 4 min., drawings on paper) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound by R. Dennis Wiancko. Voice by Joanna Priestley.   “Priestley gets across a series of personal phobias in a refreshing and humorous fashion. We get a superb, contemporary animated film with salutes to historical cartoon figures scattered throughout. Delightful!” -Marv Newland, Northwest Film and Video Festival Juror.

She-Bop (1988, 8 minutes, drawings and puppet animation) Produced, directed and animated by Joanna Priestley. Music by Dave Storrs.  Written by Carolyn Myers.  Narration by Carolyn Lochert Curtis. Funding by the National Endowment for the Arts.  A powerful mythic poem about femininity and the human spirit that examines our foibles and frailties and how to grow out of them.

All My Relations (1990, 5 min., drawings on paper with 3-D frames) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Voices by Victoria Parker and Scott Parker. Sound produced by Joanna Priestley. Sound effects by Dennis Wiancko.  All My Relations satirizes the pitfalls of romance, from marriage, childbirth and upward mobility to the disintegration of a relationship.

Pro and Con (1993, 9 min., object and cel animation, puppets, drawings on paper and clay painting)  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley and Joan Gratz. Sound produced by Lance Limbocker and Chel White. Music by Chel White. Narrated by Lt. Janice Inman and Allen Nause. “Con” written by Jeff Green. Commissioned through the Metropolitan Arts Commission's Percent for Art Program.  A look at the U.S. prison system through the eyes of a female, African American corrections officer and a white, male inmate. Pro and Con includes self-portraits that were drawn by inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary and contraband weapons and crafts that were confiscated from inmates.

Utopia Parkway  (1997, 5 min., drawings on paper, objects and replacement  animation).  Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley.  Sound design and music by Jaime Haggerty. Edited by Chris Willging and Joanna Priestley. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  Utopia Parkway was inspired by the box sculptures by Joseph Cornell, who lived in the same house on Utopia Parkway in Queens, New York, nearly all of his life.

Andaluz (2004, 6 min., drawings on paper) Directed, produced and animated by Karen Aqua and Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by Lance Limbocker. Music composed and produced by Ken Field and Juanito Pascual. Edited by Cam Williams. "Colors dance and landscapes morph to the rhythms of southern Spain in the latest work from two award-winning animators." -New York Film Festival

Dew Line (2005, 5 min., computer animation) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound designed and produced by Jaime Haggerty.  Supported by a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. “A rich abstract tapestry of botanical and biomorphic forms. Priestley’s first Flash animation is a striking continuation of her fluid playful style.” -Bill Foster, Northwest Film Center

Eye Liner (2010, 4.min., 2D computer animation) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound Designed and produced by Seth Norman.  Supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council.  “Our capacity for facial recognition in the most basic forms is considered through this whimsical, patterned animation.” -Andrea Grover, NW Filmmakers’ Festival Juror

Split Ends (2012, 4.min., 2D computer animation) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Sound Designed and produced by Seth Norman.  Supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council.  Split Ends probes perception and cognition through the use of multi-layered patterns inspired by wrapping paper from the 1960’s and wallpaper from the early 1900’s.

Dear Pluto  (2012, 4 min. 13 sec., 2D computer animation) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Written and narrated by Taylor Mali. Sound Design by Normand Roger and Pierre Yves Drapeau. Music by Pierre Yves Drapeau with Denis Chartrand and Normand Roger.  “Dear Pluto, you will always be a planet in my Solar System!” A tribute to everyone’s favorite planetoid, from the poem “Pizza” by Taylor Mali.  Animated with Maya, 3-D Studio Max and Flash.

Missed Aches (2009, 4 minutes, Adobe Flash and After Effects) Directed, produced and animated by Joanna Priestley. Written and narrated by Taylor Mali. Sound Design by Normand Roger and Pierre Yves Drapeau. Music by Pierre Yves Drapeau with Denis Chartrand and Normand Roger. Text Animation by Brian Kinkley. Character design by Don Flores. Storyboards by Dan Schaeffer. Supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Caldera Institute.  “This uproarious animation by one of the nation’s iconic animation artists colorfully serves up a cascade of malapropisms.” –Black Maria Film Festival

 Priestly Motion Pictures