In 1976, after making a six-month trip through North and West Africa, Su Friedrich moved to New York to pursue her work in photography, both as a photojournalist and an art photographer. In 1977, she attended a super 8 filmmaking course taught by David Lee at the Millennium Film Workshop. It only ran for three nights, and this turned out to be the extent of her formal filmmaking education, but the Millennium was a hub for low budget, experimental filmmakers, and a place to learn the craft from other, more experienced filmmakers. The next year, she sold her darkroom equipment and began working in super 8, and then in 16mm and in 2004 she transitioned into digital video.

Friedrich has made twenty-four films and videos which range in length from 2 to 113 minutes. She is the writer, director, cinematographer, editor and sound editor of all her films except for Hide and Seek, which was shot by Jim Denault, and on numerous films, Cathy Nan Quinlan was a co-writer and major contributing editor.

The films have been featured in twenty-six retrospectives at museums and film festivals and have been widely screened, extensively written about, are in many university and museum collections, and have won numerous grants and awards. In 2015, Sink or Swim was one of the 25 films chosen by the Library of Congress to be included in the National Film Registry.

To support herself, Friedrich worked for many years doing book and magazine production. Later, she taught at various schools, including The New School, NYU and Princeton University.

In this collection are two of her recent films, I Cannot Tell You How I Feel and Today, as well as two documentaries about women filmmakers in which she discusses her work.