Michelle Citron

Michelle Citron (born 1948, Boston, Massachusetts ) is a film, video and multimedia artist, scholar and author.

Early life

Michelle Citron was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Massachusetts, earning a B.S. in Psychology. She has an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in cognitive studies and aesthetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Citron was a Professor of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University from 1978 to 2006, where she also served as Associate Dean of The Graduate School and Chair of the Department of Radio/Television/Film. She was Chair of the Interdisciplinary Arts Department, Columbia College Chicago from 2006-2012.

Career Citron's films explore the lives of women – mothers and daughters, women in the workplace, the trauma of incest, lesbian culture – as well as ethnic identity. These works, influenced by avant-garde film and feminism, blend experimental styles with melodrama and an exploration of the border between documentary and fiction. This experimentation continues with a series of more recent interactive narratives as well as her writing, particularly her book, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions.

Filmography (partial list)

Year Title Length Description 1973 Self-Defense 4 minutes Experimental Film 1973 Integration 8 minutes Experimental Film 1975 Parthenogenesis 25 minutes Experimental documentary about two women violinists: a student and her teacher. 1978 Daughter Rite 55 minutes A feminist pseudo-documentary about mothers and daughters, it has been called " a classic, the missing link between the 'Direct Cinema' documentaries and the later hybrids that acknowledged truth couldn't always be found in front of a camera lens." 1983 What You Take for Granted… 75 minutes A fiction/documentary hybrid about women who work in traditionally male jobs, both working class and professional. 1983 Mother Rite 25 minutes A documentary video about Citron's mother who worked for many years at Hamburger Mary's, a famous gay bar and restaurant in Honolulu. 2014 Leftovers 25 minutes An experimental documentary about two women who lived together in Chicago for almost fifty years. Leftovers explores the hidden trajectory of lives lived at the margins through the snapshots left behind.Leftovers is the fourth, and final, course in Queer Feast. See Multimedia. 2017 Lives:Visible 35 minutes An essay/documentary. 2000 snapshots taken over four decades by a close group of lesbian friends reveal the rich history of butch/fem working class life in pre-Stonewall Chicago.

Multimedia Since 1999, Citron has explored new ways to experience story with a series interactive narratives that collectively comprise Queerfeast.com. Each piece in the series is a distinct work; collectively they create a multi-course meal of lesbian life played out through its pleasures, complications, and contradictions.

Year Title Description 1999 As American As Apple Pie What happens after the first kiss is over? A typical American love story about food, family, work, compromises, and adultery. Twenty-two scenes randomly accessed reveal a different trajectory of Cilla's and Lucille's relationship each time the piece is player. Along the way you learn how to make an apple pie. 2001 Cocktails & Appetizers A vibrant and sexy homage to lesbian pulp fiction of the 1950s. We eavesdrop at a cocktail party and from the swirling snippets of gossip construct a story of Max and Jesse falling into lust and love. 2002 Jewish Looks A meditation on four family photos and the myths, history, and desires that surround them. 2004 Mixed Greens A do-it-yourself movie about identity, belonging, and the things we desire. A salad of forty-eight scenes tosses together two stories: four generations of Citron's Irish Jewish heritage played against four decades of lesbian life in America, challenging our ideas of the rewards and price of assimilation. 2014 Leftovers The only linear work in the series, is the final course.