RECENT WORKS & COLLABORATIONS
Lightchasers (Currently in Post-Production.)
This documentary focuses on the history of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Basement Films. Since 1991 the volunteer-run organization has been operating as a microcinema inviting filmmakers, from all reaches of the earth, to showcase their films; holding down a 16mm and 8mm film archive; and playing host to the internationally recognized Experiments in Cinema film festival (now entering its 21st year). The ethos of Basement Films is DIY— warmly encouraging anyone to make a film regardless of budget—and to expand the notion of cinema beyond Hollywood-production and narrative standards.
Basement Films works extensively with the New Mexico population to encourage community-based education. Workshops are held to teach hand-made cinema classes and encourage the exploration of over 8,000 16mm and 8mm films within their archive. Much of the archive is comprised of educational films once housed by Albuquerque Public Schools including the early works of filmmakers Barbara Loden and Les Blank.
Produced, Directed, Shot, and Edited by Elizabeth Lowe.
This film is funded in part with a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Her Plot of Blue Sky (2023)
Fused with the poignant words of a Moroccan human rights activist Rachida Madani’s poem, Tales of a Severed Head, Her Plot of Blue Sky is a relational glimpse into the joys and struggles of a group of Amazigh women in a care home in Sefrou, Morocco. While the women engage in creating visual diaries of their everyday lives, many of their experiences of abuse, alienation, loss and poverty, are captured in one particular resident’s story. Like other women in the care home, Fatima too struggles to survive in a society that, more often than not, undermines women’s existence. By taking their own images, the women reclaim their power to be themselves. The images they create - of themselves and others - are playful yet harrowing, they point to the invisibility of women, non-hetero normative, neurodiverse, functionally diverse and elderly people in media more general.
Made in collaboration with the Centre for Human Development, Sefrou, Morocco. Funded by the Arts Council England (UK).
Synopsis written by Dr. Kamila Kuc. (www.kamilakuc.com)
Directed by Dr. Kamila Kuc.
Edited by Elizabeth Lowe.
Screenings:
Spectrum of the Everyday exhibition, Voxonica, London, UK, 10-13 November 2022. Curated by Jané Mackenzie.
‘The Survivor Lens: Reframing Trauma Narratives through Filmmaking’ symposium, Whitechapel Gallery, 25 February 2023. Curated by Laura E. Fischer (Traumascapes) and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.
MIMESIS Documentary Festival, 18 August 2023, Boedecker Cinema, Boulder, Colorado, USA. Double Shift programme.
Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava, Czech Republic, 24-29 October 2023.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 16 March 2024. In Film Songs for the New World Programme. Curated by Joanna Raczynska.
Cadence Video Poetry Festival, ‘We are looking for our shape’ programme, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, 19-28 April, 2024.
Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, Tampa, Florida, 20-23 November 2024.
Sisters’ Pictures, Other Cinema, ATA Gallery, San Francisco, California, 22 March 2025.
Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Montreal, Québec, Canada, May 2025.
Drift (2020)
In the afterlife, a woman journeys through a transcendental labyrinth to find her purpose for which she is reborn.
Shot on two continents with analog (16mm, 8mm) and digital cinematography, this experimental film is a surrealist river of vibrant and intricately patterned images. The tone and style of the film pulls from the great montages of cinema’s silent era which include the works of: Germaine Dulac, Stella F. Simon, Marion Wong, Mabel Normand, and Alice Guy-Blaché.
Produced, Directed, Shot and Edited by: Elizabeth Lowe.
Sound Composed by: Calvert Cruz.
Festivals:
Defy Film Festival (2020). Les Femmes Underground Film Festival (2020). Engauge Experimental Film Festival (2020). The Film and Video Poetry Symposium (2020). Alone Together Film Fest (2020).