Stephanie Beth

I want to be Joan (1977)

32 min 45 secSingle channel / Sound / transferred to Digital Video / Colour / Sound

I want to be Joan was made after Stephanie Beth was shoulder-tapped as an undergraduate fine arts student who knew how to operate a 16mm camera and asked to document a womens conference. The subsequent film interviewed women who attended the conference but chose not to speak at the event. Amongst their testimony the film-maker interwove song and images of paintings by contemporary female artists including Jacqueline Fraser.

Following the production of the film Beth self-organised an 18 month screening tour of New Zealand in which she showed I want to be Joan 100 times in a variety of community locations across Aotearoa. As with the original conference, each screening was followed by a discussion in which only women were allowed to speak.

Stephanie Beth is a film-maker based in Christchurch. Her first two films I want to be Joan (1977) and IN JOY (1980) are described as companion pieces, each seeking to portray the reality and potential of womens lives through a documentary lens.

Note: This film discusses domestic violence.

Other works by Stephanie Beth

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