…GWS Program

The Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Program at Gustavus Adolphus College hosted a free public screening of Small, Beautifully Moving Parts on March 7, 2013.

The screening of Small, Beautifully Moving Parts at Gustavus was the film’s premiere in MN. Co-director Annie Howell was also on campus for the screening and took questions from the audience at the conclusion of the film. Howell also worked with students in Associate Professor and Chair of the Art and Art History Department Priscilla Briggs’s Video Art class and had lunch with students that had interests in a filmmaking career.

In addition to Annie Howell, the film was co-written and co-directed by Lisa Robinson and won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2011 Hamptons International Film Festival.

The screening was not only for entertaininment, but also served as a great learning experience for students. Howell discussed the process of making the film with a small budget with a small time frame.

“Howell described how they worked very closely to the script because they had no time to experiment.  She also remarked that she would never have had the confidence to attempt such a feat as a younger filmmaker.  It is a wonderful film with quirky characters,” Briggs said.

The film is based on the story of a character named Sarah Sparks, played by Anna Margaret Hollyman. She becomes pregnant and takes a road trip due to some uncertainties she has about motherhood.

“I loved the film—it was both very funny and disrupted conventional narratives about pregnancy and motherhood,” Political Science Professor and GWS Director Jill Locke said.

Sarah is on a mission to find her mother whom she barely knows anymore. The film is a comical coming-of-parenthood story that takes a look at the way technology influences the lives of a modern woman.

“Small Beautifully Moving Parts was a delightful film in many ways that I appreciate—it was unpredictable, had good character development, and was peppered with subtle wit and humor,” Briggs said.

Howell works with documentary film making techniques and used those techniques to make her fictional film.

“The film is hilarious and well-written, superbly acted and wonderfully directed. Its combination of human and intelligence made it very enjoyable,” English Professor Sean Cobb said.

Small, Beautifully Moving Parts can be found in the Gustavus Adolphus library and is streaming on Netflix.