Starting with a piece of vintage porn, filmmaker Naomi Uman painstakingly removed each female figure from the footage using nail polish remover, leaving a striking absence where there's usually a fleshy presence. Uman's celebrated film is a smart retort to pornography's obsessive gaze at the female body.
Direction
Naomi Uman's nail polish remover activism.
Editing
Frame-by-frame erasure becomes haunting poetry.
Practical Effects
Chemical destruction as filmmaking technique.
Director
Naomi Uman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Uman spent months meticulously applying nail polish remover to each 16mm frame by hand, destroying the original print in the process.
Part of 1990s 'feminist experimental film' movement alongside Cheryl Dunye and Su Friedrich, redefining 'women's cinema' beyond representation into material critique.
US
