Jill Godmilow introduction
(almost given at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, March 2015 before a screening of Jill’s What Farocki Taught (I came late)
Yesterday afternoon Tacita Dean said that film had four essential qualities, she offered up a list of four pillars, or four legs. She said that film was about the accident, rhythm, blindness and beauty. I think that cocktail is very much in evidence in Jill Godmillow’s work this afternoon.
Often I find the most important events in someone’s life, an artist’s life for instance, is something that doesn’t happen. Jill described herself to me in an email as “a nice Jewish girl from Philadelphia… I was supposed to marry a dentist and have 2.5 children in suburban Philly. Everything since I broke out of jail has been a whole lot of luck and good horse sense on my part.” It makes me wonder if someone in this room will manage to break out of jail today, and if they do, will they be congratulated or condemned for it?
Please join me in welcoming the jailbreaker herself, Jill Godmilow.