Chick Strand (December 3, 1931 – July 11, 2009) was an experimental filmmaker, "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary".[1]
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Born Mildred in Northern California she was given the nickname "Chick" by her father. Strand studied anthropology at Berkeley, and in the early 1960s organised film happenings with Bruce Baillie. In 1961, Strand and Baillie, among others, founded what would later become San Francisco Cinematheque under the name Canyon Cinema. (Starting in 1966, the Canyon Cinema name would also encompass a seminal avant-garde distributor as well. The distribution and exhibition wings would split in the 1970s, resulting in the newly christened San Francisco Cinematheque.)
Later, with Baillie and Ernest Callenbach, she edited the Canyon Cinema newsletter Canyon Cinema News, which became a focal point for the West Coast independent film movement.[2] She enrolled on the ethnography program at UCLA, and after graduating in 1971 taught for 24 years at Occidental College.[3] For over thirty years she made made regular trips to Mexico with her second husband Neon Park and made films about the people she met there.[3] In later years she became a painter.[4]
Mosori Monika (1969) is a documentary about colonialism in Venezuela, told from the points of view of an elderly Warao woman, a Franciscan nun and the filmmaker herself. Other films on Latin America include Cosas de mi Vida (1976), Guacamole (1976) and Mujer de Milfuegos (Woman of a Thousand Fires) (1976).[1] Strand's ethnographic films are distinctive for their complex layering of sound and image, and the juxtaposition of found footage and sound with original images.[5] Later works include Cartoon le Mousse (1979), Fever Dream (1979) and Kristallnacht (1979).[3] Fake Fruit Factory (1986) is included on the National Film Preservation Foundation's 2009 DVD Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986.[6]
Her films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art[7] and the Tate.[8] An early promotional film for Sears, made with Pat O'Neill and Neon Park, is held along with her complete body of work in the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[9]