‘Confrontational, transgressive, provocative, and poetic, Tessa Hughes-Freeland approaches filmmaking from a multiplicity of styles. Her work includes underground films, classic narrative, expanded cinematic performances, experimental “automatic” films assembled entirely from found footage, and delicate fans made from film of all gauges.
‘In live-action films, as well as collaged films from found footage, Hughes-Freeland taps into the sophisticated emotional filters we erect to deal with uncomfortable feelings. Images crash into one another in disorienting ways. Drawing upon the mind-altering potential of spontaneous transformation and the power of myth, her films are essentially “psychedelic”—conjuring ineffable experiences beyond the commonplace.
‘“My films are ritualistic and atavistic—inspired by dreams, visions, and imagination. Sometimes the nucleus of an idea for a film starts with an object. The original idea for Hireath came from the top of the Christmas cake, which my mother made every year,” the artist says.
‘Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a crucial downtown denizen by way of England, a scintillating vestige from the heady days of Danceteria and Club 57, and still one of the best we’ve got. Landing in the city in 1980 and beginning her film work with a super-8 camera gifted from David Wojnarowicz, her work spans four decades, tracing a unique arc that rubs elbows with many of the canonical figures and movements of NYC underground film culture. No Wave Cinema turns to Cinema of Transgression; expanded cinema bleeds into ‘multimedia’; the East Village descends and the underground breaks—Hughes-Freeland was there, camera in hand. Shifting in style and sensibility, ranging from 8mm scuzz to experimental documentary to elegiac film-portrait, her work in aggregate is difficult to summarize, better seen than described. Certain themes run through—sexuality, voyeurism, ritual, dream, and decay.
‘“Found footage is the basis of much of my films. Similarly, a found object can inspire an entire film. I see these as signifiers or emotional triggers that become a part of my own symbolic language. The fans consist of found film in all gauges—home movies; Hollywood studio films; pornographic films; or random footage found in thrift stores, yard sales, or just lying on the street,” Hughes-Freeland explains.
‘Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s films have been screened internationally in museums, galleries, and seedy bars, including MoMA, MOCA, Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum, and KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Currently, five of her films are featured in an exhibition touring museums throughout Asia, including Seoul, South Korea. She has been a juror for numerous festivals and programmed extensively, most recently for the Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983 exhibition at MoMA, and for Punk Lust: Raw Provocation 1971-85 at the Museum of Sex. Hughes-Freeland was president of the board of directors of the New York-based Film–Makers‘ Cooperative for several years.’ — Howl!
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Stills
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Further
Tessa Hughes-Freeland Site
TH-F @ instagram
TH-F @ Panel of Experts
TH-F @ The Film-makers Cooperative
Tessa Hughes-Freeland: Passed and Present
Watch Online: Cinema of Transgression
TH-F @ Letterboxd
Scrapbook: Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Raha Raissnia
Podcast: The Film Cult Podcast w/ TH-F
Trigger Warning: Films of Tessa Hughes-Freeland
TH-F @ MUBI
TH-F @ PARISLA
TESSA HUGHES-FREELAND: Selected Video And Film Works, 1981-2013
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Extras
Tessa Hughes-Freeland: Selected Video & Film Works 1981-2013
Ela Troyano & Tessa Hughes-Freeland ‘Godard/Contempt’
Mekas tributes: Charlemagne Palestine, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Ken Jacobs
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Interview
Danielle de Picciotto: Tessa, what is it you want to express in your films? Is it a general theme or always a different one?
Tessa Hughes Freeland: I believe that everybody sees and perceives the world differently, so there are all these different realities existing simultaneously, including those below the level of consciousness or outside of it. People are sensitive to all kinds of sensory information to a greater or lesser degree. There is so much going on simultaneously and it spreads across time, so many people have developed sophisticated emotional filters to deal with any sentiments that may be uncomfortable. I’m interested in penetrating those filters and getting beyond them and exploring areas of discomfort. I an also interested in channeling a stream of lateral unconscious thought. I sometimes plan and sometimes I work spontaneously. Even the plans give way to spontaneity and that’s usually the best because it acquires a magical life of it’s own and then it’s the most exciting and inspiring to work with.
In terms of themes I like to explore emotional states such as Hell-bent self destruction, frenzied disorientation, crushing beauty, gentle contemplation, scorching desire, explosive joy, lighthearted fancy, deep sorrow, transporting or uncontrollable love and intense passion. Otherwise they are mysterious dreamlike adventures. My films are really personal rituals.
What do you look for in films in general? What are your favorite ones?
I like films that are a little peculiar, to make me think, as well as films that are beautiful to look at or give me space to get lost in, or a mood to envelop me. I’m looking for a place to escape to. I’m looking for beauty and depth. I do like them to be slightly eerie or involve a mystical element. For that reason I love Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly “The Stalker”. I like fantasy action films, for instance the Hong Kong film “Green Snake”, I really appreciate the way that sound can be sculpted in the way that Michelangelo Antonioni does. He allows it to totally dominate or just disappear. Other than “Zabriskie Point”, “The Oberwald Mystery” is one of my favorites. I’m always delighted when I come across a film I know dubbed in a foreign language with subtitles in different one. The overload creates a confusion of meaning and I love that. It’s subtle psychedelic. I love the bleakness of humanity in Lars Von Trier films and that it is matched with emotional pathos, or the mysterious psychopathology of Dario Argento, which is so intense. Of course I love experimental and underground films, especially Harry Smith, Kenneth Anger and Storm de Hirsch. I also have an affection for old Hammer Horror films, which I grew up on. In general, I like black and white films, especially those by Jean Cocteau. This is a really hard question to answer because I like so many films.
You have been directing and producing films for over 30 years . Has anything changed for you over the time in what you are trying to convey?
Yes, definitely, many things have definitely changed. I have always made live action films as well as collage films, which include found footag as I used to think that I could find most of the images I needed. That the images existed already as signifiers and emotional triggers, which I could assemble to create combinations that would work for me as a symbolic language. With respect to the collage films, I wasn’t so attached to creating my own images. I like it when images can crash into one and other in an incomprehensible way yet are recognizable. To me spontaneous transformation is essentially psychedelic. Of course, where the live action films are concerned the imagery was a product of my imagination combined with the dictates of the immediate environment and circumstance during the shoot. There is only so much one can control and less that I actually wanted to. As time has progressed, I have gravitated towards shooting outside more and adhere to the dictates of nature. One cannot argue with that. I have found myself becoming more interested in landscape and along with that, I have become more attached to creating my own visual language. It’s mostly informed by ancient mythology and mystical occurrences, yet incorporates more elements of the intellect. Even though my films are figurative, I’m usually thinking about abstract concepts within a romantic framework. I really see them as visual poems.
Tessa, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a new film about memory and loss. It focuses on varying stages of femininity, our collective unconscious and the mythology of female archetypes as seers. It also draws on pagan roots. Marrying ancient mythology with the irony of nostalgia. I am also working with film material directly. Making hand made slides from plants and animals and hand made film, which I may possibly integrate into the film one way or another. If not then they may end up as different film, which will be more abstract.
What are your plans for the future?
I‘ll just keep working and see where that takes me. I’ll follow the ideas that come to me, some turn into something and others don’t. I’m going to have a show in an art space called Howl! in New York next year, which will be an installation implementing a variety of cinematic elements. I have also been invited to be in a museum show in Seoul, Korea this winter. So I will start thinking about that. I have more respect for the unplanned than the planned. I think that actually is the plan. Otherwise, I‘ll just keep flowing down the river to the sea.
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13 of Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s 26 films
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Baby Doll (1982)
‘Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s “Baby Doll” is a tiny slice of cinéma vérité from 1982 about the girls working the now defunct Baby Doll Lounge on Church and White St. in downtown Manhattan. It captures a moment before NYC got sanitized.’ — Letterboxd
Trailer
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Joker (1983)
‘“Joker” is a 1983 non-narrative experimental ode to masks, fire, and Bette Davis, which marks Hughes-Freeland’s move into incorporating classic Hollywood footage into her films.’ — screenslate
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Play Boy (1984)
‘An experimental film spliced together from the detritus of early 1980s Times Square’s porn and pawn shops, Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s ‘Play Boy’ (1984) feels gritty, sensorial, and hypnotic. A figurative and psychedelic experimentation with film language and voyeurism, the film offers a unique take on transgressive cinema. Born out of Hughes-Freeland’s lack of liquid cash for new celluloid at the time, ‘Play Boy‘ combines found footage Super 8 film footage from westerns, stag films, to boxing matches to create new meaning. Her film places visual clichés common to cinema in conflict – a shot of a judge in a white wig is double-exposed with a pornographic tribal sacrificing. A naked woman tied in restraints meets a shot of two nuns. Just as a sentence combines pre-existing words to create new meaning, Play Boy combines pre-existing images to create moral transgression. The recycled images are textured and worn, and in its peepshow-like looped format, looking feels both seedy and pleasurable.‘ — boilerroom.tv
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The Virginia Tripping Film (1985)
‘Filmic evidence of the infamous 1985 Richmond, Virginia exhibition that featured downtown artists Wojnarowicz, Marilyn Minter, Luis Frangella, and more painting naughty murals while on acid.’ — Letterboxd
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The Butthole Surfers Film (1986)
‘A document of a performance by the Butthole Surfers in the 1980s.’ — Letterboxd
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w/ Tommy Turner Rat Trap (1986)
‘Tommy Turner and Hughes-Freeland’s Rat Trap is an equivocal but indelible depiction of drug taking.’ — MoMA
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Dirty (1993)
‘Inspired by and loosely based on the introduction to Blue Of Noon by Georges Bataiile, the title was taken from the name of the main character. It is a short prtrayal of one person’s descent into a state of degradation. In spite f her affluence, Dirty is rendered helpless in the hands of those she sought to patronize.The shifting points of view of this film allow the viewer to experience the protagonist as she is seen by herself, and how the world sees her.’ — collaged
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Nymphomania (1993)
‘NYMPHOMANIA deptics the archetypal personification of female sexuality via the motif if a beautiful, graceful, dancing Nymph. Against the nymph, Hughes-Freeland & Adams present a massively phallicised Pan who is aroused by the nymph’s neauty and watches her. The film is a parody of myths of an ‘ancient/pagan’ essential plentitude and is thus a blackly Comedic critique of attitudes toward the dialectic of male/female sexuality. It locates a sexual mythology specific to Western Culture and deconstructs it via a depiction of its inherent power relationships and by pursuing this trajectory to its logical conclusion.’ — Jack Sargeant
the entirety
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Instinct (2007)
‘Originally one side of a live multiple projection, INSTINCT mixes irrationally convergent imagery. An iconography of the intangible and intuitive, time lapses as elemental aspects of the female psyche. Psychedelic disorder and repetition, visual collage suggests a alternative syncretism.’ — Letterboxd
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Gift (2010)
‘A surrealistic narrative is created which collapses different realities into one, by means of both similarities and juxtapositions There is a certain irony in creating such a narrative which revels in the popular romanticism of a sleep state, as a means to open the door to an interior world of alternative realities and parallel universes.’ — TH-F
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Hippie Home Movie (2013)
‘This film was made for an exhibition entitled “Ghosts of the Catskills”. The history of the Catskills had made an impression on me was that of the alchemy of landscape and the influence of Woodstock hippie culture.’ — TH-F
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Kind (2013)
‘This film was made for an exhibition entitled “My Icon” Jumping off the springboard of the popular religious iconography of mother and child, as a mother I took my child as the subject. Not only is this logical visually, my child being a dominant subject in my life on a daily basis, but also for a gentle and contemplative state which is so innate. By witnessing the development of emotion one becomes connected to the essence of humanity. KIND is one of those moments.’ — TH-F
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Untitled (AFA50) (2021)
‘To celebrate Anthology Film Archives’ 50th Anniversary, we’ve been reaching out to filmmakers, artists, scholars, and others to bear witness to Anthology’s value – to the influence AFA has had on their own work, its significance within the history of avant-garde cinema and art, and its place in the sphere of contemporary culture in NYC and beyond. These testimonials have taken the form of short videos – some comprising newly produced short films in their own right – which we’re sharing on Vimeo and elsewhere.’ — ATA
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p.s. RIP Dan Graham, Leo Bersani. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. I’m good, thanks. And thanks in retrospect about ‘Pills’. Fantastic news about your book! Really look forward to it, and thanks for offering to share it. Do you need my coordinates? Here’s my email if you don’t have it: [email protected]. Great, big congrats!!! ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, I’m going to start reading the John Waters novel this week. So curious, and I’ll let you know. It comes out officially in early May. I have a very clear memory of your mom being an awesome ceramicist. That will look great chiseled on love’s tombstone. Love starting a virulent worldwide trend of all humans under the age of 30 wearing black stovepipe top hats even when they sleep or take a shower, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, interesting, thank you for the ‘Diogenes’ fill-in. I think the last time I took an actual recreational drug was in 2002. Ecstasy plus a toot of coke. ** David, Yikes. I’ve never taken antidepressants or that kind of thing strangely. My fucked up-ness has always been a ship I could right with distractions. I’m from LA where we don’t have big storms, just earthquakes and fires and droughts. Ah, you sprung for ‘LCTG’, the early work. Thank you. ** Misanthrope, Oh, well, thank you, sir. You on drugs is a little bit of a scary thought, it’s true. I don’t really lose control when drunk or on drugs, except a couple of times via LSD,. My insides just get more complicated or, in the case of alcohol, sluggish. Good, about my religious outlook being okay. It’s all Greek to me. So … is your weekend fulfilling its promise so far? ** Bill, Cool. Right, I blurbed that Joel Lane book, I forgot. Any, uh, trouble? ** Maria, Isabella, Camila, Malaria, Gabriela, Howdy, pal. Shrooms, yum. Well, yes, they can lead one astray a la your circling. I’m glad you’re in one piece, or, wait, five! ** Steve Erickson, Oops! I hope the symptoms stay blah, and … how long are they asking people to quarantine for these days? Briefly-ish, I hope. ** _Black_Acrylic, That famous storm you went through seems to have made a beeline around Paris because we’ve been dead still. As in a previous week, I left CNN on last night after the only show I watch on there, and they announced Leeds’ loss to Manchester, and I thought of you. Sorry, man, but, yeah, stay hopeful. What else is there? ** Shane, I envy that high, that’s for sure. My highs are, or, were so prosaic, i.e. ‘Wow, dead leaves are so cool’, and shit like that. ** T, Happy Monday, T. Pathetic is only an interesting word when it exits the mouth of some lazy brained teenager. But I am easily charmed by such people. My weekend was ok. Did my zoom book club, hung out with friends, worked, saw a movie (‘Moonfall’), shit like that. Not as good a weekend as yours! You sorted the voice/guitar conundrum! That’s really exciting! Hooray! I’m obviously super into the future experience of hearing the consequent stuff. That is a nice sound. We didn’t get that here in the 8th, weird, or I was asleep or something. Dare I wish you a Monday that sounds like what I’m hearing, which is pretty much silence outside interfered with by a very low kind of ringing tone that has beset my ears ever since I attended a Melt Banana concert in the early 00s and which I’ve strangely come to appreciate? xo. ** Verity Pawloski, Me give up smoking?! Perish the thought! Thank you about the post, and even thank you for the Duran Duran input. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Thanks, bud. Oh, right, of course, that is the moment in ‘Salo’ I was thinking of and, yeah, of course it was on purpose. Or at the very least a mistake Pasolini loved. Whew, glad you got your package with no accompanying humiliation. Ha ha, well, surely no surprise: I thought ‘Moonfall’ was totally ludicrous, and I totally loved it! Huge fun! I think a world where ‘Power of the Dog’ and ‘Belfast’ get nominated for Best Picture and ‘Moonfall’ tanks is a world that does not understand pleasure. There isn’t much to say about ‘Moonfall’, is there? The awful aspects were just twinkling aspects to me. I’m a disaster movie slut. There, I said it aloud. How did you use Presidents’ Day? I hope it was highly respectful to their memories. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi, Corey! Yeah, I’ve been thinking about you and wondering what was going on with you. Eek, get through the Covid post-haste. Dude, congrats on the upcoming new pad and hood. I’ll take the youtube tour as soon as I punch ‘publish’. Stuff good? What’s going on generally? ** Brandon, Hi, Brandon, welcome, and very nice to meet you! Yeah, that’s interesting: the comparison to 90s Mekas. There’s a Mekas retrospective coming up here in Paris ultra-soon, and, obviously, I’m excited for that. I’m really happy to have occasioned your hookup with ‘Homeo’. Experimental filmmaking is a massive interest and love of mine, and I cover it here on the blog as often I can. Suggestions … there’s a wealth, I think, and it’s hard to sort into a short list at the moment. I did this post here a few months ago where I put links to all the film-related posts I’ve made, and it’s all over the place, but you confined some pretty interesting work in there if you fish around. Here. And I’ll keep covering that turf. And if I think of anything that I think might be of particular relevance, I’ll try to remember to say so. Thanks again, and, yeah, please do come in here and hang out any time and as much as you want. ** Okay. I’m thinking that maybe most of you might not know the films of Tessa Hughes-Freeland. Her early work is associated with the Cinema of Transgression, and her later work is quite different. Interesting body of work if you’re interested in knowing about it. See you tomorrow.
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Now available in North America 
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yep I’m looking forward to getting that DVD of your and Zac’s work… spotted a mention of David Wojnarowicz in this post….is cool as fuck… I went to the premier of ‘Postcard’s from America’ years ago at the ICA in london, do you like Diamanda Galas? I saw her perform live a few years ago, she was amazing! Tessa Hughs is pretty cool by the looks of things!! brill!
I’ve just booked an appointment for tomorrow to have my wisdom looked at, hopefully removed… it’s a big ordeal for me….
cheers Dennis
x
Maria, Isabella, Camila, Malaria, Gabriela has forseen things happening with tooth,
But I will keep this to myself.
Be very carefully and….
I go
Bea Lillie said it best.
This Just In: Homophobia in Egyptain Rather sstange to see this reactionary manifestation as Eypt’s leading filmmakerYoussef Chahhine, was a Big Ol’ Gay Homosexual who, amog other thids, discovered actor Omar Sharif.
Here’s the trailer for Chahine’s “Adieu Bonaparte” which stars Patrice Chereau as Napoleon and Michel Piccoli as a gay Egyptian genteman
Hi!!
Yes, please definitely let me know about the John Waters novel! I’m really excited about it!
Hahaha, okay, I’m all for your love’s trend-setting skills! I’d really love to see this in action! Love resembling a garden gnome so much that a fellow customer tries to buy him at Walmart, Od.
Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a new name to me. So cool, and I would love to see those early works somehow projected onto nightclub walls.
The Leeds v Man U game yesterday was like something from the 70s with lots of goals, atrocious conditions and a volatile crowd. So good to have these fixtures back again. Plus, us having a genius manager is just the icing on the cake.
Dennis, Another new one for me. Going on 16 years on the blog for me and still new stuff all the time.
So far, so good on this weekend. It’s been very chill and relaxed. Will be working on some stuff today. I worked on some a little yesterday. I have no complaints.
How was your weekend?
John Oliver RULES!
Hey Dennis, thank you so much for that link to your different film posts , I can’t wait to do a deep dive. The Mekas retrospective sounds exciting, do you know what films you’ll hopefully be seeing? I wish they’d bring one back to LA soon, I love his work and I’ve been looking for his Birth of a Nation for years but it’s so difficult to find outside of the rentable film. I’m going to see Dennis Cooper’s Out of the Blue in theaters tonight which has been a favorite of mine for some time so i’m excited to see it properly restored. Have you seen the film? Linda Manz gives one of the best punk and child performances of all time imo. Thanks for the warmness, hope you have a great week.
-Brandon
Correction: Dennis HOPPER’s Out of the blue, very embarrassed haha. Also after typing this up I actually decided to search for Birth of a Nation and found that someone put it on youtube just one day ago. Funny how stuff like that happens.
Hughes-Freedman is new to me. I enjoyed the Hippie Home Video, found it inspiring in how it does what it does with what I presume is a low logistical burden on the creator. When I’m recovered from COVID and settled in my new place I mean to take video around town. The city is changing fast.
Things are very good generally. I’ve been making new friends. A few friendships came out of the short-lived poetry series I co-organized over the summer. My job’s going well. It’s stable and low-key. I’m stoked about the move. It’ll open up a lot of possibilities for me.
I’ve been out of the loop here for a while. How’s the home haunt film going?
We’re supposed to quarantine five days from the first symptom, as long as we feel OK then (or even if the symptoms are merely improving.) I have contacted my doctor, and I’m waiting to hear back about a teleconference he wants to set up, as well as getting a prescription for antiviral medication. I feel OK -it’s like a cold, with the only really grating part being an extremely sore throat.
I don’t know how the COVID situation stands in France, but a friend caught it while traveling in Paris and is now isolating in a hotel room there.
My latest music roundup is now out in Gay City News: https://gaycitynews.com/queer-music-roundup-hikaru-utada-allison-russell-and-dltzk/
I’d heard Hughes-Freeland associated with Kern and Zedd but knew nothing about her, and I haven’t seen any of her work yet. I’ll remedy that tonight.
Hey Dennis,
Can’t wait to watch these—I’m setting them aside for Wednesday when I have off. I don’t think I’d have found it particularly embarrassing if my neighbor had happened to open the contents after all. I learned long ago to stop being ashamed of what I read or watch, and I’m not into S&M anyway, so it would have been a non-issue. Still good not to have to had to deal with that all the same, of course. I’m thrilled you enjoyed “Moonfall”!!! When I saw it I was worried I was going to be bored out of my mind, but I had such a good time start to finish. I’ll be quoting “You’re part of the moon now” till my dying day. It’s a shame it’s tanking because it’s genuinely much more entertaining than 90% of the garbage Hollywood puts out nowadays, yes. And it means we won’t get the full trilogy! I’m considering writing the director and asking him about where it would have gone, just so I can feel I’ve tried everything. Very honorable of you to publicly own your perfectly understandable disaster movie sluttery. I just spent Presidents’ Day spending time with my brother before he went back to school. Not particularly holiday-appropriate, but satisfying to me all the same. Now I’m looking ahead to the week. What’s on the queue for you?