User:Secundus Zephyrus/sandbox

Early Life
Biller was born in Kalihi, Hawaii to a Japanese-American mother who is a fashion designer and a white father who is a visual artist, and then raised in Los Angeles. She grew up watching her mother design clothes, watching her father paint with a bright color palette, and watching classic cinema, all of which has had a big influence on her filmmaking practice. She is known for her visual style, and for her use of period genres and satire. She has a B.A. in art from UCLA and an MFA in art and film from the California Institute of the Arts, where she studied under Morgan Fisher and Paul McCarthy. She started making 8mm films while she was living in New York, and when she arrived at CalArts, those films were received better than her other artwork, so she decided to focus on that for her MFA.

Career
At the beginning of her career, Biller was known for her short films and staged musicals, which played with old Hollywood genres and tropes from the 1930s-'50s, and her performance art that explored slapstick and camp. She made her first short film, Three Examples of Myself as Queen while studying at CalArts. The process took about two years because she preferred to make the film more like an artist than a filmmaker, which meant she filled most of the crew positions herself. In the film, Biller plays Pointsettia, a teenager who turns into a princess and has the power to transform men into dogs. The film screened at small venues and film festivals. Lane Relyea of Artforum International wrote "the film's humor and graceful perplexity may not have caused any sudden shifts in the local fault lines but did crack a glorious smile on this audience member's face." John Hartl of the Seattle Times called it a "bizarre, Warholian musical fantasy."

In 2001, she directed two short films: The Hypnotist, a melodrama written by her frequent collaborator Jared Sanford, and A Visit from the Incubus, a Western horror musical. A Visit from the Incubus tells the story of a woman who is raped by an incubus, and decides to get back at him by challenging him to a singing competition. Robert Nott of The Santa Fe New Mexican called it a "must-see".

Her 2007 feature film, Viva, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and won the Best of Fest Award at the Boston Underground Film Festival. The film was also entered into the main competition at the 29th Moscow International Film Festival. Reason magazine called Viva an "uncannily precise rendition of the look, sound, mood, and arch dialogue" of seventies sexploitation films, with "high-key, pseudo-Technicolor lighting and spare, colorful set design."

Her second film, The Love Witch, was a twist on classic serial killer films, featuring a female killer who kills through calculated sexuality, causing her male victims to fall too much in love. Richard Brody of The New Yorker said of The Love Witch, "Biller puts genre to the test of do-it-yourself artistry, and puts feminist ideology itself to the test of style. The film pulsates with furious creative energy throughout, sparking excitement and giddy amazement that it even exists." In May 2016, The Love Witch was acquired for distribution by Oscilloscope Laboratories. The Love Witch was included in many lists for the best films of 2016, including those of The New Yorker and Indiewire. It won in a tie for the Trailblazer Award and Best Costume Design at the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle Awards, and also won the Michael Cimino Best Film Award at the American Independent Film Awards. ''

Biller considers herself a feminist filmmaker, and consciously explores feminist themes throughout her work, including an attempt to insert the female gaze into cinema.

Viva
Made photos series when starting to conceive the idea. funding came from one of Biller's friends. final cost was $750,000. The film was made slowly as they had to keep keep raising more money since they budgeted for $100,000.

Shot from 2005-2007 Biller chose to star in the film herself because she "wouldn't ask another actress to take off her clothes in the movie and do all these things with the power trip being 'I'm the director, you're the actress.'" Bunuel's Bell de Jour was the inspiration for Viva

36th International Film Festival Rotterdam Daniel Steinhart of Film Journal International wrote: "Full of campy performances and giggle-inducing period costumes, the film may be destined for cult status"

Lauren Horwitch of Backstage wrote "Biller once again proves herself to be a master multi-tasker with her new musical, Viva, which she wrote, directed, edited, designed the costumes, and stars in."

Biller created all the marketing material for Viva herself; she didn't have a distributor so she distributed herself.

Viva had a very limited theatrical release; it played at Cinema Village in New York for only one week, and received poor ticket sales. (add another DVD citation on the film's article)


 * http://www.latimes.com/la-oew-fiveq24-2008jun24-story.html
 * https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/viva
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/movies/02viva.html
 * https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9C02EFD71531F931A35756C0A96E9C8B63.html
 * https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/what-to-stream-this-weekend-five-films-that-dance

Love Witch
2 years to write the script

The Love Witch

 * https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/movies/review-the-love-witch.html
 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/the-love-witch-is-a-smart-and-gorgeous-homage-to-technicolor-horror/2016/11/17/06833f36-a906-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?utm_term=.a26283ed1bc3
 * https://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/anna-biller-love-witch-oscilloscope-1201777979/
 * http://www.vulture.com/2017/02/you-should-watch-the-love-witch-this-valentines-day.html
 * https://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/the-love-witch-anna-biller-crew-1201904994/
 * http://www.anothergaze.com/crazy-love-transgressive-femininities-anna-billers-love-witch/
 * http://www.laweekly.com/arts/la-bred-filmmaker-anna-biller-made-a-witchy-retro-masterpiece-that-straight-guys-will-misread-7591025
 * https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/movies-to-stream-this-weekend-the-boundaries-of-horror
 * https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-state-of-independent-film-in-2016
 * https://film.avclub.com/director-anna-biller-on-the-radical-pleasures-and-subve-1798259618 (mentions lighting and acting and casting)
 * https://filmmakermagazine.com/98928-im-actually-trying-create-a-film-for-women-anna-biller-on-the-love-witch (mentions maryland film fest premiere, rewriting script,
 * https://filmmakermagazine.com/98928-im-actually-trying-create-a-film-for-women-anna-biller-on-the-love-witch/

to do

 * clean up references
 * continue reading the long pdf from the section about short films

Other Sources

 * https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/10/filmcal.html (mentions short films)

pdfs

 * http://www.academia.edu/5423918/Unlikely_Genres_An_Interview_with_Anna_Biller
 * http://www.academia.edu/5423827/Dated_Sexuality_Anna_Billers_Viva_and_the_Retrospective_Life_of_Sexploitation_Cinema

Searching for permission

 * https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495552890/AONE?u=pl2668r&sid=AONE&xid=4854cd15