Roberta Friedman

Roberta Friedman, a filmmaker and video artist, has a decades-long career of achievements, including projects from the commercial—including George Lucas’s Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, specializing in sparks, matte work, and swords—to the experimental, such as her film work preserved in the Academy Film Archive and the video The Erl King, created in collaboration with Grahame Weinbren, which was the first interactive art piece acquired by the Guggenheim Museum for its permanent collection.

As an independent filmmaker, Friedman was in an early influential group of LA-based experimental video artists whose work is currently restored and in the collection of both the Film Academy Archive and the Australian National Film Library. As she developed her art work, Friedman was a much sought-out filmmaker and worked on award-winning films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Days of Heaven, and Ragtime (film).

Spanning a large amount of film and video productions as well as collaborations with new music artists and composers, Friedman's work has been presented extensively in the United States and Europe at the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, MOMA, the Pompidou Centre, and other venues.[1]

A pioneer in the area of interactive media, Friedman uses film, video and digital hybrids in presenting multi filmworks, such as Straight From Bertha and the Erl King at the Whitney Biennial, the Guggenheim Museum and the Millennium Film Workshop, among others. She is currently working on a video and film project is an homage to John Cage's 49 Waltz's. With longtime collaborator Daniel Loewenthal, Friedman and Lowenthal are using Cage's concept by creating the Cosmopolis Project. A series of video installations with striking visual and sound portraits taken from the streets of Cairo, Beijing, Graz, Detroit, and New York City reflect urban cultures in transition.

Friedman has received grants and awards from NYSCA, NEA, BFI, the Australian Commission and has shown her films at many festivals, including the Athens International Festival, Sinking Creek Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, FILMEX, Millennium Film Workshop, Berlin Film Festival and the Rotterdam Film Festival.

...
Wikipedia