IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN
aka IM SPIEGEL DER MAYA DEREN

Year: 2002
USA: Zeitgeist Films
Cast: Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas
Director: Martina Kudlacek
Countries: Austria / Switzerland / Germany
USA: 104 mins
USA Release Date: 24 January 2003 (Limited Release - New York)


Synopsis

With IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN, documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlacek has fashioned not only fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential artist, but a pitch-perfect introduction to her strikingly beautiful and poetic body of work.

Maya Deren (nee Eleanora Derenkovskaya) is arguably the most important and innovative avant-garde filmmaker in the history of American cinema. Using locations from the Hollywood hills to Haiti, Deren made such mesmerizing films as AT LAND, RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME, and her masterpiece, MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, which won a prestigious international experimental filmmaking prize at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.

Starting with excerpts from these films, IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN seamlessly and effectively interweaves archival footage with observances from acolytes and contemporaries such as filmmakers Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas, dance pioneer Katherine Dunham, and Living Theater founder Judith Malina. With an original score by experimental composer John Zorn.