Fannie's Film
Short Films
•
14m
Directed by Fronza Woods • Documentary • 1981 • 15 minutes
In FANNIE'S FILM, a 65-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers' exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes of women of color who earn their living as domestic workers, this seemingly simple documentary achieves a quiet revolution: the expressive portrait of a fully realized individual. Part of the mediamaking movement that first gave centrality to the voices and experiences of African American women during the late seventies and early eighties.
"Very simply, one of the best short films that I’ve ever seen.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Up Next in Short Films
-
Aguilucho: Dance of the Harpy Eagle
Directed by Daniel Byers • Documentary • With Jose de Jesus Vargas • 2021 • 22 minutes
In the remote Darién Gap rainforest, indigenous communities face the advance of loggers and cattle ranchers, an existential threat to their way of life and the ecosystem upon which they rely. When a rare Harpy...
-
Sensei Fran Kicks Ass
Directed by Simone Fary • Documentary • With Fran Vall • 2019 • 19 minutes
Octogenarian Fran Vall holds a 6th degree black belt in Judo and a 5th one in Naginata (Japanese sword fighting). In addition to mentoring at three martial arts clubs she still finds time to work as a ski and snowboard in...
-
African Air
Directed by Brian Storm • Documentary • 2011 • 8 minutes
Flying in a motorized paraglider over one of the most diverse continents in the world, George Steinmetz captures in his photography the stunning beauty, potential, and hope of Africa's landscapes and people.
