A filmmaker and trailblazing film distribution entrepreneur, Freude (1942–2009) became a central figure in the San Francisco Bay Area film community in the late 1960s and 1970s. Her Serious Business Company (1972–83) distributed many of the era’s most acclaimed independent and experimental films, but its lasting impact created a platform for discovering lesser-known works. Freude’s contributions to the experimental film and independent filmmaking communities remain largely unsung. This article will excite further investigation and recognition into Freude’s important efforts to support California and national artist-made filmmaking movements as it examines her professional relationships and draws from interviews, correspondence, and ephemera from the Serious Business Company archives at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. It also builds on recent efforts at BAMPFA and San Francisco State University’s the Archive Project where authors Antonella Bonfanti and Tanya Zimbardo have recently been involved with public programs about Freude’s legacy.
Serious Business: Freude and Feminist Film Distribution Available to Purchase
Tanya Zimbardo is a San Francisco–based curator. As assistant curator of Media Arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Zimbardo has curated several exhibitions and public programs. Zimbardo has guest (co-)organized screenings for nonprofit organizations including the Canyon Cinema Foundation, San Francisco Cinematheque, and McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. Her programs have highlighted artist filmmakers such as Barbara Hammer, Lynn Marie Kirby, Gunvor Nelson, Alison O’Daniel, Cauleen Smith, and Dorothy Wiley. She has contributed to publications including Gravity Spells II: Bay Area New Music and Expanded Cinema Art, Art Practical, INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media, and VoCA Journal.
Antonella Bonfanti is a moving image archivist and curator, currently working at Lucasfilm. As Film Collection Supervisor at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2020–22) she oversaw collection management and preservation projects. Recent initiatives included five short films by Dorothy Wiley; a selection of shorts by women directors that were distributed by Freude’s Serious Business Company; and Wayne Wang’s Life Is Cheap…but Toilet Paper Is Expensive (1989/2021). She served as director of the Canyon Cinema Foundation (2015–20), where she was responsible for the overall stewardship of the famed Bay Area experimental film distributor.
Tanya Zimbardo, Antonella Bonfanti; Serious Business: Freude and Feminist Film Distribution. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2024; 10 (2-3): 244–257. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2024.10.2-3.244
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