# Su Friedrich [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Friedrich) [sufriedrich.com](https://www.sufriedrich.com/) (1954– ) ## Description American filmmaker whose diary and essay films combine optical printing, hand-scratched intertitles, and voice to examine family history, lesbian sexuality, and urban change; a leading figure in feminist and queer experimental documentary since the 1980s. ## Key Tags #diary-film #essay-film #feminist #queer ## Essential Works - [The Ties That Bind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Friedrich) (1984) - essay film interweaving her mother's account of growing up in Nazi Germany with her own voice-over - [Sink or Swim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sink_or_Swim_(film)) (1990) - alphabetically structured autobiographical film addressed to her absent father - [Hide and Seek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Friedrich) (1996) - narrative-documentary hybrid on girlhood and coming out ## Details Studied at Oberlin and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before developing her signature technique of scratching or painting hand-lettered intertitles directly onto the filmstrip, fusing text and image into a single material surface. Her later work extended the diary/essay form toward more explicit documentary (*Hide and Seek*, *The Odds of Recovery*) while retaining the hand-worked, materially marked image of her earlier films; longtime faculty at Princeton's Lewis Center for the Arts. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Queer Theory]] - her diary and essay films are frequently discussed as key primary texts of queer experimental film ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Princeton University - longtime faculty in the Lewis Center for the Arts ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %% ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%