Women on Film:
Under the Skin

In celebration of the first major retrospective of Cindy Sherman’s work in Canada for 20 years, the Vancouver Art Gallery has partnered with the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) to present a series of the internationally acclaimed artist’s favourite films, as selected by her.

For almost 50 years, Sherman has consistently explored the tension between identity and persona through the creation of characters that she assumes in each of her photographs. Her work, therefore, has always had a performative aspect, often reminiscent of movie types and suggestive of wider dramatic scenarios. Using make-up, wigs, costumes and other means to transform her appearance, Sherman draws on the iconography of old and new Hollywood, as well as fashion advertising, historical painting and contemporary portraiture, to suggest the myriad ways women project themselves into the world. This short film series is meant to complement and extend that investigation.

Under the Skin
Friday December 27, 2 PM
One of the most radical, underground movies to creep into the mainstream this decade, Jonathan Glazer’s first since Birth might have been called “The Woman Who Fell to Earth.” That woman is Scarlett Johansson, simultaneously deglamourized and highly sexualized. In a mesmerically choreographed series of incidents she picks up random men and destroys them. It’s a dispassionate, alienated view of sexual attraction and human connection, and unlike anything you have seen before.

Also Playing:
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Friday December 27, 2 PM

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Saturday December 28, 2 PM