Animation and design: Stacey Steers; Narrated by: Stan Brakhage; Original music: Bruce Odland.
WATUNNA ("The memory of our beginning") retells the creation myths of the Yekuana Indians who reside in Venezuela's rain forest, stories of night, evil, sexuality, animals, fire and food. For the filmmaker this is a reckoning with years spent living remotely in Latin America. "Steers has created a figurative animation film of such complexity and all inclusive human 'world view' that her WATUNNA exists without rival in the history of cinema, only comparable to Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic Feature and Jordan's SOPHIE'S PLACE." - Stan Brakhage
"Stacey Steers gracefully explores the rhythms of mythology and dreamtime in her animated film WATUNNA. � Eschewing the fidgety pixilation that passes for cutting-edge animation, Steers' archaic imagery and parchment-textured backgrounds suggest a timeless circularity �. [F]igures and forms smoothly evolve and transform into each other, beginning with tapestry patterns that come to life like birds in an Escher drawing." - Richard Gehr, The Village Voice
1989, 16mm, color/so, 24m, $70
In tribal cultures, animals often embody poetic qualities. Manyu become living vessels of meaning or totems. In literate cultures, the written word seems to replace the animals as the concrete symbol of metaphor. TOTEM explores the ancient relationship and the shift to our own point of view, in a lyrical, dream-like flow of animated images and sounds.
"This painstaking and perfectly paced film explores the relationship between humans and animals, particularly endangered species, using an alphabetical structure and the subtle interplay between language, iconography, and metaphor."-J. Gluckstern
1998, 16mm, color/so, 11m, $25