Directed by Lynne Sachs and Anne Lesley Selcer • 2020 • United States

For GIRL IS PRESENCE, Lynne Sachs has made images as a form of reading and listening in response to disquieting words from Anne Lesley Selcer’s poem “Sun Cycle.” A girl arranges and rearranges objects, sensorily reflecting the tense and disharmonious list of words voiced by Selcer in the film. As the language builds in tension, the scene becomes occult, ritualistic, and alchemical. Against the uncertain and anxious pandemic atmosphere, performer Noa Street-Sachs, the filmmaker’s daughter, creates and unmakes systems with the collection of small, mysterious things. Selcer’s poem emerges from her book of the same name, which deals with image, gender, and power. This poem reworks a George Bataille essay to undo and recast its rhythms.