Finding Norma

FINDING NORMA is a multi-channel video installation that approaches the life and work of Brazilian lesbian filmmaker Norma Bahia Pontes (1941—2010) through the traces she left behind and the gaps created by her disappearance from film history. Norma's work spanned countries, political movements and cinematic forms, from “Cinema Novo” in Brazil to anti-colonial filmmaking in France to lesbian-feminist videos in New York in the 1970s. Through an experimental montage, artist and filmmaker Lívia Perez Normas brings Normas films and videos into a dialogue with recordings of Perez's own encounters with Norma, whose archive is spread across Brazil, the United States and France. Perez sees the archive as a living and unstable space in which images recur, absences become visible and new connections can be created. With this installation, she reflects on what it means to approach an artist on the basis of incomplete archival documents whose work has remained largely ignored within the prevailing historiography of cinema. In the course of this encounter, Perez opens a dialogue between two generations of Latin American filmmakers across time and national borders.

Credits Artist: Lívia Perez Producer: Giovanni Francischelli Co-Editor: Henrique Cartaxo Script Consultant: Eri Sarmet Archive: Rita Moreira and Norma Bahia Pontes Archive, courtesy of Rita Moreira Artist Filmstrip: Leila Monsegur Analog Photography/ Film Development: Gustavo Lemos Additional Photography: Flora Correia, Livia Sá, Rhaissa Monteiro Additional Sound: Paula Sacchetta

Special thanks to Rita Moreira for her generous access to her and Norma Bahia Ponte's archives, and to Esther Hamburger, B. Ruby Rich, Isaac Julien and Mark Nash, who contributed decisively to the implementation of the project with their critical and generous contributions.

With support from Doctela Digital Arts and New Media Program Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas University of California, Santa Cruz