Deborah Stratman

15 min. English.

Draw down the sun. Dig up the gold.

The urge to relieve a winter valley of permanent shadow and find gold in alluvial gravel is part of a long history of desire and extraction in the far Canadian north. Cancan dancers, curlers, smelters, former city officials, and a curious cliff-side mirrored disc congregate to form a town portrait. Shot on location in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. (Deborah Stratman)

Deborah Stratman, born in 1967 in Washington D.C., USA, is a Chicago-based artist and filmmaker. In her work she investigates issues of power, control, and belief, exploring how places, ideas, and society are intertwined. She has exhibited internationally at major biennials, art institutions, and film festivals. Stratman is the recipient of several awards, fellowships, and grants. She teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Production company Pythagoras Film (Chicago, USA). Written and directed by Deborah Stratman. Director of photography Deborah Stratman. Editing Deborah Stratman. Music Charlie Chaplin. Sound design Deborah Stratman. Sound Deborah Stratman, Steve Badgett. Production design Deborah Stratman, Steve Badgett. With John Steins, Eldo Enns, Steve Badgett, Charles Stankievech, Simon Manson-Wood, Lance Blomgren.

World sales Pythagoras Film

Films

1990: My Alchemy (7 min.). 1991: Upon a Time (10 min.). 1992: A Letter (7 min.), Possibilities, Dilemmas (10 min.), the train from la to la (8 min.). 1993: In Flight: Day No. 2,128 (2 min.), Palimpsest (3 min.). 1994: Waking (7 min.). 1995: Iolanthe (5 min.), On the Various Nature of Things (25 min.). 1997: From Hetty to Nancy (44 min.). 1999: the BLVD (64 min.). 2001: Untied (3 min.). 2002: In Order Not to Be Here (33 min.). 2003: Energy Country (15 min.). 2004: Kings of the Sky (68 min.). 2005: How Among the Frozen Words (1 min.). 2006: It Will Die Out in the Mind (4 min.). 2007: The Magician’s House (6 min.). 2008: Butter and Tomatoes (4 min.), The Memory (2 min.). 2009: O’er the Land (52 min.). 2010: Kuyenda N’Kubvina (40 min.), FF (3 min.), Shrimp Chicken Fish (5 min.), Ray’s Birds (7 min.). 2011: …These Blazeing Starrs! (14 min.), A Throb (1 min.). 2012: Village, silenced (7 min.), The Name is not the Thing named (11 min.). 2013: Musical Insects (7 min.), Immortal, Suspended (6 min.). 2014: Hacked Circuit (15 min.), Second Sighted (5 min.). 2016: The Illinois Parables (60 min., forum expanded 2016), Xenoi (15 min.). 2017: Siege (7 min.). 2018: Optimism.