Filmmaking legend Chick Strand passes away

West Coast nonfiction filmmaking legend Chick Strand passed away on Saturday, July 11 at the age of 78. Chick was a force behind the formation of art/underground film distributor Canyon Cinema and founding editor of the influential Canyon Cinemanews journal.

Strand, who stayed in Los Angeles after graduating from UCLA in 1971, taught at Occidental College for 24 years, where she would sit in the back of the room next to the projector, showing films such as Bruce Conner’s A Movie and smoking like a chimney. “I sort of made up the program as I went along,” she muses, explaining that she basically was the film program for many years. A class with Strand generally started with each student describing his or her first sexual experience; after that, no one had anything more to hide and they could get on with the business of making movies.

 

Chick Strand’s credits include:

Coming Up for Air (short) – Director, Writer (writer), Editor, Producer.1986

Cartoon le Mousse (short) – Director, Writer (writer), Editor, Producer. 1979

Kristallnacht (short) – Director, Writer (writer), Editor, Produce. 1979   

Loose Ends (short) – Director, Writer (writer), Editor, Producer. 1979               

Soft Fiction – Director. 1979                             

 Woman of a Thousand Fires (short) – Director. 1976                                        

 Angel Blue Sweet Wings (short) – Director, Writer (writer), Editor, Producer.1966

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