THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT (2019)
Filmed on location in Harlem, USA and in Claude Monet’s historic gardens in Giverny, France, The Giverny Document is a multi-textured cinematic poem that meditates on the safety and bodily autonomy of Black women. Filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary unleashes an arsenal of techniques and materials including direct animation on archival 16mm film, woman on the street interviews, and montage editing techniques to explore the creative virtuosity of Black femme performance figures while interrogating the histories of those bodies as spaces of forced labor and commodified production.
Single Channel, 41 mins
Directed, edited and animated by Ja'Tovia Gary
Producers: Paige Wood, Artesia Balthrop, Ja'Tovia Gary
Cinematographer: Mia Cioffi Henry
Music: Dyani Douze, Nelson Bandela
a SPELL NUMBER SEVEN production
Official Selection:
Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland 2019
Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick-upon-Tweed 2019
Camden International Film Festival, Camden, Maine 2019
Houston Cinema Arts Festival, Houston 2019
AFI Fest, Los Angeles 2019
Montreal RIDM 2019
London Short Film Festival 2020
Denton Black Film Festival 2020
Portland International Film Festival 2020
Additional Screenings:
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania; Cinemateca de Bogotá; and elsewhere.