A re-working of Humphrey Jenning's 1943 seminal docu-drama The Silent Village wherein coal miners from the Welsh village of Cwmgiedd re-enact the Nazi invasion and annihilation of the resisting Czech villagers of Lidice. Principal focus in this re-mix is upon the way sound is used as a mode of social control.
Filmmaker Deborah Stratman works in a territory between experimental and documentary genres. In her films and frequent work in other media, including drawing, sculpture, sound, photography and small press, she explores the history, uses, mythologies and control of highly varied landscapes, from Muslim Xinjiang China to suburban southern California. Her recent work addresses American constructs of Freedom, the junction between technology and faith and contemporary locations of the supernatural. Stratman teaches in the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Stratman was the subject of a mid-career retrospective,The Thing Unnamed, at MoMA New York in 2013.