The naked body in public settings

Naked States, by Arlene Donnelly Nelson. VHS and DVD. Focuses on Spencer Tunick. Reviewed in Nude and Natural 21.2 Winter 2002. http://www.hbo.com/nakedstates/cmp/main.html http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/naked_states/ 73 minutes Highly Recommended! You may see some of Spencer's work described as adult content or its viewing by minors in need of adult supervision. You can see this at his HBO web site promoting Naked States. This is bullocks.

The follow up to Naked States has arrived! Naked World is a Juntos Films production; director and producer, Arlene Donnelly Nelson; executive producer, David Nelson; producer, Helen Hood Scheer; editor, Tom Donahue; camera, Dave Linstrom, Arlene Donnelly Nelson; composers, Leigh Roberts, Chris Hajian. For HBO: supervising producer, Nancy Abraham; executive producer, Sheila Nevins. 76 minutes Arlene Donnelly Nelson's follow-up documentary on Spencer Tunick follows the contemporary artist as he invites thousands of people of all races, shapes and sizes out of their clothes and into the streets for art's sake. His latest project is a global odyssey to photograph nudes on all seven continents. http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/naked_world/ http://www.nakedworlddoc.com Highly Recommended!

Naked Pavement

A film by Joshua Tunick, 18 min, 1998, 16mm, B&W, USA

"One of the decade's best short documentaries"
- Steve Fesenmaier, Graffiti Magazine

Synopsis
A journey into the exciting, and often stressful art of Spencer Tunick (no relation to the director), a New York City artist who stages huge, one hundred person plus, nude photographs all over the world. Naked Pavement investigates two such events in Manhattan and the artist behind these massive collections of nude bodies.

Screening & Award Highlights:
Sundance Channel May 2002 (ongoing); NYU First Run Film Festival April 2000; Edinburgh International Film Festival August 1999; Digital Film Festival (Traveling) 1999; Dallas Video Festival March 1999; Res Fest Aug. – Oct. 1998; BBC British Short Film Fest. Sep. 1998; Atlanta Film & Video Festival June 1998 Grand Jury Prize – Best Documentary Video; Charlotte Film & Video Festival June 1998 Awarded Cash Prize; Student Academy Awards April 1998 Nomination - Highest Score at New York Judging; New Haven Film Festival April 1998 2nd Place Audience Award; Double Take Documentary Festival April 1998; Tampere International Short Film Fest. March 1998 Named “One of the Best Short Films in the World”; Phat Shorts Feb. 1998; Slamdance Film Festival Jan. 1998 (World Premiere); Clips Film Festival Dec. 1997 (Screened as Work in Progress)

http://hotwired.wired.com/retina/95/33/naked/

BEING HUMAN A film by Lisa Seidenberg A documentary about public nudity running time: 31minutes ©2003 Metro Video original format:video contact: tel: USA 203 226-8313 email: lisa131@erols.com Premiered in New York at Anthology Film Archives on January 15, 2003. Future screenings: New England Film & Video Festival, Harvard Film Archive, March 26 Boston

"BEING HUMAN" is a new documentary about British human rights activists Vincent Bethell and Russell Shaw Higgs who wage a campaign for the right to be naked in public.

"I think it's a very modest thing to actually be naked," says Bethell in the film, who spent 6 months in prison totally naked, "to just be yourself, just to say this is just me, I'm a human being, I belong to the human race."

As the two are beseiged by media and onlookers, they struggle to get their message across about inhumanity and commodification of modern society. The peak event is a universal call for everyone to take their clothes off on July 1, 2001.

Footage from this film was actually used in court to win their release.

Filmmaker's Bio:
Lisa Seidenberg has been a documentary filmmaker and journalist for many years and is interested primarily in issues of cultural and political change. Previous works as director include: "Mongolia on the Edge of Time","Children of the Dust" ,"Foxtrot Sierra" ,"The Liberators" and "Between the Eagle and The Bear".

Picture and press release courtesy of Lisa Seidenberg

Incarnating for the Afternoon by Marty Kent/X-plicit Players video), also showed at Berkeley Film Fest Adapted, Directed and Edited by Marty Kent. Produced by Debbie Moore and Marty Kent, Videography by "Chex" Demon and Steve Jacobson, Music by Marty Kent and Debbie Moore. NTSC VHS Stereo HiFi, Approx run time 51 minutes 2002 http://www.xplicitplayers.com

segment on Andrew Martinez on The Spirit of Naturism by Michael Cooney

Radtour-Classics 2001: Nackt-Radtour in und um Karlsruhe am 14. 6. 2001

A film by Karl-Heinz Kreuter, 45 min, Germany, 2001

A special look at the Naked Bike Tour held in Karlsruhe, Germany on the 14th of June, 2001. While Germany is well known for its greater tolerance of public nudity, such as having a clothing-optional public park in the middle of Munich, this bike ride is still quite a spectacle to see.

Information about this event (in German / Auf Deutsch) can be found at Wald-FKK:

http://www.waldfkk.de/radtour2001/

Check back soon for more information!

Professional German business correspondence with film makers in Germany provided pro bono by Claudia Kellersch, Software Translator and Conference Interpreter, into_german@mindspring.com

Emerging body-positive communities

Burning Man Festival by Joe Winston - OW MYEYE Productions, 1996, 39 minutes (filmed at 1995 Burning Man). Highly Recommended! http://owmyeye.com Joe also did a follow up to that movie with Burning Man: Just Add Couches

More videos centered around the Burning Man Project can be found at

http://marketplace.burningman.com

Drama in the Desert: The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man is a full-color book (which includes a DVD) based on the captivating images of Holly Kreuter, with contributions from an additional 90 Burning Man participants, offering the reader a taste of the Burning Man experience.

One of the least interesting films on Burning Man

BFcomments: A good effort. A bit timid in covering the body freedom aspect of the event. Some of the photographs are quite good but others don't seem to quite hold up too well in terms of focus and exposure. The video is mainly the same photographs in the book set to music with very little video footage. Some of the better videos by other groups have shown more of the personality and featured more interviews than this piece

topfree equality

material on Edin Velez's It's a Nude World (1987) showing "one of the key topfree demonstrations in New York that resulted in women in that state receiving the right to go without a shirt whenever and wherever a man can." [ info from Cinema Au Naturel: A History of Nudist Film by Mark Storey]

body image

Private Dicks: Men Exposed
Produced & Directed by Thom Powers & Meema Spadola, Sugar Pictures / 259 West 30th Street, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10001 / Phone 212-279-1461 / Fax 212-279-1492 http://www.sugarpictures.com
Surveying young and old, gay and straight, large and small, virgin and porn star, from all walks of life, Private Dicks explores the naked truth about how men feel about their penises.
(a presentation of HBO America Undercover)

Breasts: A Documentary
Produced & Directed by Thom Powers & Meema Spadola, Sugar Pictures / 259 West 30th Street, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10001 / Phone 212-279-1461 / Fax 212-279-1492 http://www.sugarpictures.com
Twenty-two women talk about their most public private parts.
(HBO Home Video)

Society & Nudity

What Would You Say to a Naked Lady?

by Allen Funt Productions/MGM http://www.candidcamera.com

Recommended

Short films

Nude Not by Thomas Lundy, 6 min, 2000

review at http://nudieshorts.com/roam/press/n/n_21_4.htm

Recommended!

Analog Roam by Kurt Wahlner, 11 min, 2002

http://nudieshorts.com

review at http://nudieshorts.com/roam/press/n/n_21_4.htm

Recommended

Peter's Day in the Sun, 10 min, 2000.

review at http://nudieshorts.com/roam/press/n/n_21_4.htm

Books on film

Mark Story's Cinema Au Naturel: A History of Nudist Film

many exploitation films available at Something Weird http://www.somethingweird.com

Highly Recommended!

Recreational & Social Nudity in public and private communities

The Beginners Guide to Skinnydipping (Edin Velez, 1991, Fast Forward Images Production)

The nude body in art

Invitation to Stare (in production, trailer available)

Directed by: JON WALDREP, Produced by: JAMES W. TAYLOR, Cinematography by: DEIRDRE COULTER, Edited by: MICHAEL CROSS

http://www.crossfilms.com/films/invitationtostare.html

http://www.bodypaintingmovie.com

The Sensual Art of Bodypainting (1997, Edin Velez)

Short segments

Brazil protest footage

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=232673&group=webcast

http://brasil.indymedia.org/media/2003/01/246610.mov

footage from Sandy Snakenberg's SF naked skating

http://sk8around.net/nakedskating.html

Nike "More Go" streaker commercial

http://www.nike.com/morego/morego_streaker_mac.jhtml

NO bUSH: A nude public action in NYC by Wendy Tremayne and Marina Potok

NO bUSH took place on February 7 2003, sunrise at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, NYC. NO bUSH is an art project and a political statement - a simple one "NO BUSH." All of the wonderful women who posed for NO bUSH volunteered.

http://wendypolyploidy.com/nobush/

Music Video

Bjork is using her body whole to express herself in new ways as an artist. In her recent video Pagan Poetry, the clothes that hang from piercings on her body form a type of body embellishment rather than a cover. Check out her latest three videos: Cocoon, Hidden Places, and Pagan Poetry off her new album Verspertine (available on compact disc and dvd-audio formats). Bjork's new DVD "Volumen 2" contains these videos.

The video artists/film directors who made some of Bjork's more body-positive videos deserve special attention. Some information below comes from bjork.com:

Cocoon, was directed by Eiko Ishioka in New York USA, May 2001. Eiko is also famous for her books and her amazing scenography and costume work in many films, such as bram stoker's 'dracula', and 'the cell'.

The video Pagan Poetry was directed by Nick Knight and shot in June 2001 in London, UK.

The video Hidden Place was directed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, co-directed by M/M (Paris) and shot in February 2001 in London, UK.

Previous Bjork videos directors:

Chris Cunningham directed the groundbreaking video "All is Full of Love".

Michel Gondry, director of some of Bjorks most bizarre music videos, went on to make the movie "Human Nature", a surreal film with some interesting issues relating to body freedom and sexuality.

general activism in film/video/television

Highly Recommended viewing for any activists:

This is What Democracy Looks Like

A co-production of the Seattle Independent Media Center and Big Noise Films, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE is a 70 minute documentary capturing the events of the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle.

Cut from the footage of over 100 media activists, the film marks a turning point in collaborative filmmaking and achieves a scope and vision possible only through the lenses of over 100 cameras.

With a driving soundtrack including Rage Against the Machine, DJ Shadow, and Anne Feeney, as well as narration by Susan Sarandon and Michael Franti, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE delivers an intensely political and emotional account of a week that changed the world.

More than a film, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE is a mobilizing campaign. The same grassroots network that celebrated victory in Seattle is collaborating to bring THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE to communities all over the world and mobilizing activists to initiate a
dialogue about new ways to organize across our differences

body expression in film/video/television

If anybody knows of anything out there please share with us. There are plenty of grassroots naturist films. However there is currently no known film about body freedom as a human right. This will change though.

Nudes in the News, covering news via an internet news service and a streaming video show. The show is sponsored by International Naturists Association (INA)

Click right image to enlarge

The TV documentary series 'Taboo - 40 Years of Censorship. Part 1 of 4: Shock of the Nude'; BBC2 9:50 pm (40 mins). Aired Wednesday, 21 Nov 2001. (official informational web site no longer online)

The following is a review by Richard A. Collins, and was posted to the stop segregation discussion group on Nov 22, 2001:

"40 mins of well informed presentation featuring plenty of 'happy to be naked' people in different situations and showing how nude acceptance, and in particular censorship, has changed in the UK since the early 70's.

Vincent was featured walking naked through the streets of London while being interviewed by the presenter, the well respected Joan Bakewell, during which Vincent clearly stated that in the 'Public Nuisance' trial the jury found him not guilty by a unanimous verdict. Amused onlookers didn't have a problem with Vincent's nudity - one guy shouted encouragement - and a young girl said she thought it was amusing when asked by Joan what she thought.

Vincent was also given air time while sitting relaxed indoors (still naked) where he explained how the whole idea of TFTBY started. Footage of the news report when Vincent scaled that famous lamppost was also shown. "

[ BBC Steve Gough piece, 2003?]

INA has put together a "Naturist Guide to the Movies" at http://clothesfree.com/movies.html

The following films have snippets (emphasis on snippets) of body expression or body freedom in them:

Walkabout Australia drama 1971 color 100 min. Director: Nicolas Roeg

Human Nature: Bizarre and funny. Michel Gondry, director of some of Bjork's most bizarre music videos, went on to make this surreal film with some interesting issues relating to body freedom and sexuality.

Together ("Tillsammans"). Life in a Swedish commune. Mefis Films. Directed by Lukas Moodysson. In Swedish, with English subtitles, 102 minutes

above image from "Together"

The Pillow Book Using the body for expression. Written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Running time: 126 minutes. No MPAA rating (extensive frontal nudity, sexual situations, adult themes).

Woodstock Produced & Directed by Michael Wadleigh. The Academy Award-Winning documentary of rock and roll's most historic event.

Something Weird Video has helped save thousands of forgotten films from the past that were previously dismissed as worthless or lost. A small number of these were done in the 1950's thru the 1970's and were done in a psychedelic mix of drugs, sex, counter-culture, anti-war, youth rebellion, freedom, and body expression. Many of these films were very independent, experimental, low-budget, and some would argue - exploitative. A huge majority of the films seems to be exploitative in one degree or another. Let us know if there is anything worthy of note that is not exploitative.

Some of these films are now also available on NTSC DVD video.

Click on image for larger view. Screen captures from the Hippy Revolt, directed by Edgar Beatty. Available from Something Weird Video

The Hippie Revolt (1967) - Political, social documentary. Probably not the greatest film covering the times, but quite interesting. Has some interesting segments covering the Haight-Ashbury experience of the psychedelic sixties. Has some very cool body painting sequences. Doesn't seem to be exploitative. Available in the Mondo Mod/The Hippie Revolt double feature DVD from Something Weird. Some special features unrelated to the movie on that DVD are somewhat exploitative and/or overtly sexual (for those concerned).