Curated by Miranda July and Shauna McGarry.

Last month I visited The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The exhibit included a retrospective on Miranda July’s Joanie4Jackie Project (formerly Big Miss Moviola).  As an independent distribution system and feminist art project Joanie4Jackie invited women filmmakers and video artists to submit their completed works which were then compiled onto a “Chainletter” tape of ten pieces in the order of their arrival. Each artist on a Chainletter tape received a copy of that tape and a corresponding booklet of letters written by the featured artists. In 12years Joanie4Jackie compiled 19 Chainletter tapes and three curated Co-Star tapes. As I stared down into the glass case that housed a decade of the project’s video cassettes, letters, and related ephemera, I felt proud to have contributed my teenage movies to such a monumental exchange, and nostalgic that at 27yrs old something that was so tangible, raw and experiential in my lifetime was already an untouchable museum piece.  And yet Big Miss Moviola’s challenge and promise continues to live on in the hearts of everyone who waited patiently for their Chainletter tape in the mail. We have adopted that promise and passed on the challenge to the girls and women that we teach and mentor to make, distribute, and screen their untold stories and dreams. www.joanie4jackie.com
                                                                                 – Amy Lynn Kazymerchyk

Girl, if you make the movie, I promise you somebody will see it.  There oughta be hundreds of lady made movies flying all over this country.  Like some kinda crazy chainletter that can’t be broke.  And every movie made inspires another lady to go:  I can do that. 

Lady, U send me: Your movie and I’ll send you the latest Big Miss Moviola Compilation tape.  That’s ten-lady-made movies, including yours.

                                  (From a Big Miss Moviola/ Joanie 4 Jackie pamphlet, 1995)

PROGRAM: 95mins

Joanie4Jackie: A Quick Overview | Shauna McGarry | USA 2007 | 20mins.
Dear Mom | Tammy Rae Carland | USA 1996 | 3mins
Removed | Naomi Uman | USA 1999 | 6mins
How the Miracle of Masturbation Saved Me From Becoming a Teenage Space Alien | Dulcie Clarkson | USA 1998 | 21.5mins
Cinderella +++ | Eileen Maxson | USA 2002 | 3.5mins
Electronic Ballet | C. Ryder Cooley, Zoey Kroll | USA 1997 | 2.25mins
The Slow Escape | Sativa Peterson | USA 1997 | 20.5mins
Toxic Shock | Vanessa Renwick | USA 1983 | 3mins
Atlanta | Miranda July | USA 1996 | 11mins
This is Sarah Nye | Sarah Hanssen | USA 2003 | 5mins