Sasha Waters also known as Sasha Waters Freyer, is an American documentary and experimental filmmaker, feminist and educator. She has produced and directed twenty films, most of which originate in

16mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 mm and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, ...

and except for her first documentary has edited all of her films. Her films have screened at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, Union Docs and the Gene Siskel Film Center. Selected festivals include IMAGES in Toronto and the Telluride Film Festival. She is also a professor of Photography and Film at

VCU School of the Arts The Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (also referred to as VCU School of the Arts or simply VCUarts) is a public non-profit art and design school in Richmond, Virginia. One of many degree-offering schools at VCU, the School of ...

in Richmond, Virginia.

Early life and education

Sasha Waters was born in Brooklyn and educated at the University of Michigan and the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

in New York City, where she earned her BFA in Photography in 1991. She earned her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Career

Waters began her academic career at the University of Iowa in 2000, teaching there until the end of 2012. From 2013 to 2019, she served as Chair of the

Department of Photography + Film where she is currently a Professor. Waters co-produced her first film, ''Whipped'' (1998), with Iana Porter. It is a

documentary portrait of three professional New York

dominatrix A dominatrix ( ; or dominatrices ), or domme, is a woman who takes the dominant role in BDSM activities. The BDSM practice is called female dominance, or femdom. A dominatrix can be of any sexual orientation, but this does not necessarily l ...

es. ''Whipped'' premiered at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, screened at the 1998 Chicago Underground Film Festival, and was called a "likable, low-key demystification of a potentially lurid subject," by ''Variety.'' Waters' second film, ''Razing Appalachia'' chronicled a years-long struggle against the expansion of a mountaintop removal mine by

Arch Coal Arch Resources, previously known as Arch Coal, was an American coal mining and processing company. The company mined, processed, and marketed bituminous and sub-bituminous coal with low sulfur content in the United States. Arch Resources was the ...

in rural West Virginia. Reviewing the documentary for ''The New Yorker'' when it aired on the PBS series ''

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrenc ...

'' in 2003, Nancy Franklin wrote that it was a good example of "what makes public TV valuable." ''Chekhov for Children'' (2010) documents a full-length production of

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

's ''

Uncle Vanya ''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897, and first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstan ...

'' that was staged in 1979 at

Symphony Space Symphony Space, founded by Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller, is a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization at 2537 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Performances take place in the 760-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theat ...

on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Directed by

Phillip Lopate Phillip Lopate (born November 16, 1943) is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. Early life Phillip Lopate was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a BA degree from Columbia University in 1964 and rec ...

, the play's cast and crew were made up entirely of fifth- and sixth-grade students from P.S. 75. It premiered in the US at the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, during Labor Day, Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 51st Telluride Film Festival, 51st edition took place on August 30–September ...

and at the

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

. It was listed as one of the "Best Undistributed Films" of the year in the IndieWire Annual Critics Survey, 2010. Waters' feature documentary '' Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable'' screened theatrically and at festivals in 2018. It was called one of the year's best by ''The New Yorker'''s Richard Brody and won a Special Jury Prize in the Documentary Competition at the 2018

SXSW Film Festival South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both s ...

. The film aired on the PBS series ''

American Masters ''American Masters'' is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and those who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the U ...

'' in April 2019. Since 2019, Waters has been working on a documentary on the artist

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933, in McPherson, Kansas. His w ...

and his unfinished film on the gospel group

The Soul Stirrers The Soul Stirrers were an American gospel music group, whose career spans over eighty years. The group was a pioneer in the development of the quartet style of gospel, and a major influence on Soul, R&B, Doo-wop, and Southern soul, some of th ...

titled ''Trouble Don't Last''. She has also completed a trilogy of experimental short films that turn an anti-colonial and feminist lens onto the history of photography and cinema – cyanotypes in ''Ghost Protists'', magic lantern glass slides in ''Fragile'', and popular romance in ''Ashes of Roses''.

Awards and honors

*Fellow, MacDowell 1999, 2002, and 2017 *Media Arts grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, 2007, 2015, 2020 *2016: Helen Hill Award, Orphan Film Symposium *2016: Winner, Best in Show, New Waves,

Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, marketed as ''Virginia MOCA'', is a non-collecting contemporary art museum and community art center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, widely known for its annual Boardwalk Art Show. Virginia MOCA itself evol ...

*2018 Special Jury Prize, SXSW Film Festival, for ''Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable'' *2019–20 Fellowship from the

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the supp ...

*2020 Field of Vision grant for ''Trouble Don't Last''

Filmography

* ''Whipped'' (1998), co-produced with Iana Porter – documentary, 60 mins *''This Existence is Material'' (2003) *''Razing Appalachia'' (2003) – documentary, 72 mins *''The Waiting Time'' (2005) *''Her Heart is Washed in Water and then Weighed'' (2006) *''This American Gothic'' (2008) *''You Can See the Sun in Late December'' (2010) *''Chekhov for Children'' (2010) – documentary *''An Incomplete History of the Travelogue, 1925'' (2012) *''Our Summer Made Her Light Escape'' (2012) *''An Incomplete History of Pornography, 1979'' (2013) *''Burn Out the Day'' (2014) *''A Partial History of the Natural World, 1965'' (2015) *''Garden of Stone'' (2015) *''dragons & seraphim'' (2017) *'' Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable'' (2018) – documentary *''Respiration'' (2019) *''Fragile'' (2022) *''Ashes of Roses'' (2023) *''Ghost Protists'' (2024)

References

External links

*
"SXSW 2018 Women Directors: Meet Sasha Waters Freyer," ''Women and Hollywood'' Interview"Garry Winogrand and the End of an Era," Seph Rodney, ''Hyperallergic''

Interview about Chekhov for Children on The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freyer, Sasha Waters Virginia Commonwealth University faculty School of Visual Arts alumni Temple University Tyler School of Art alumni University of Michigan people Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women documentary filmmakers American documentary filmmakers American experimental filmmakers American women experimental filmmakers American art educators