Adnan is a lyrical documentary portrait of artist and writer Etel Adnan, shot over the final five years of her life. In her 90s, experiencing a surge of International acclaim, she is processing the past. attentive to the present, and working with philosophic depth and feeling.
ETEL ADNAN – FINAL STAGES!
$50,000.00
Goal-
$22,955.00
Raised -
17
Days to go
ETEL ADNAN FILM – CAN YOU HELP US FINISH?
Can you help us complete the final stages of Adnan, a feature documentary and expressive portrait of artist and writer Etel Adnan, shot in close collaboration with the artist over the last five years of her life?
We are at picture lock and have received some great attention – – but need funds to finish. We have been able to get 60% of the way there with small grants, donations and some deferred costs. We are looking for your help to fund the last 40% to finish the film (final edits, sound design, mix, picture grading, online etc. to bring the film into the world). We hope to complete the film in the first few months of the new year. Can you help?
All donations are tax-deductible and will receive a tax-deductible receipt!
Any + all donations are hugely appreciated and will get project updates.
$50 and up will receive three digital postcards from the film
$1,000 dig. postcards + Thank You in the film’s end credits
$5,000 dig. postcards + Special Thanks in the end credits
$10,000 dig. postcards + Made With Support in the end credits
DONATIONS
Credit card donations here (a small extra processing fee is taken from the film)
Checks can be made and mailed to UnionDocs (‘Adnan’ in the memo), 352 Onderdonk Ave, Ridgewood, NY 11385.
ACH, wire transfer or wise – email Lauren Whittaker at [email protected]
ABOUT THE FILM
Adnan is a creative documentary film made in close collaboration with celebrated artist and writer Etel Adnan. Shot during visits with Adnan over the last five years of her life, the film is a portrait of Adnan in her fullness of being. As she draws in her studio, paints, writes, lives, she also is processing the world, talking about the thickness of time, about life-as-thinking, about languages as vibrations, the pleasures of exile, the power of symbolic experiences, what it means to belong to the Arab world, to California and to the earth. Thinking through her past and in the middle of international acclaim, Adnan is most interested in the present. The film, in its intimacy with Adnan and expressive use of form, creates a unique subjectivity of Adnan in her world, bringing the viewer closer and closer to Adnan’s ideas and her own powerful attention.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Marie Valentine Regan is an American filmmaker based in Paris. She got her start in film at Coppola’s American Zoetrope, studied experimental film at the SF Art Institute and earned her MFA in film from Columbia University. A MacDowell Colony fellow, her work has screened and won prizes at many international festivals including Zinebi Bilbao, São Paulo, Woodstock, Nashville and Palm Springs. Her work has also screened in museums including the Museum of Sound and Image (São Paolo), Pera Museum (Istanbul), K20 (Dusseldorf), and KINDL (Berlin). In 2015, she co-directed (w/Chi-hui Yang) the Oberhausen Film Symposium. She has taught film for many years in New York and in Paris where she now lives.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT
I first saw Etel Adnan’s work at the 2014 Whitney Biennial where her vivid paintings struck me. Months later, relocated to Paris and lonely, I wandered into an art bookshop and saw three of Adnan’s images on the wall, an encouraging sign. That night on the phone I told my mother about seeing these paintings and she gasped, “Etel Adnan was my philosophy professor in college!” I also discovered Adnan was a major poet and that a New York friend had recently published a collection of her work. When he gave me Adnan’s email, I wrote telling her how much her paintings had meant to me, and how much her presence had meant to my mother decades before. I did not expect a reply. The next day she called, inviting me to her home. When she opened the door she said, ‘ma petite fille’ (granddaughter).
In the early years of our friendship, the last thing I wanted was to make a film about her, not wanting to be another person claiming her time for a project. But soon, I realized my closeness to her and my understanding of her work gave me a chance to make a film that might reveal her in an immediacy and depth that had not yet been done. A few years in, Adnan told me she had had a sixth sense that I should make this film. I could not be more grateful for Etel Adnan’s presence in my life, and for her participation and presence in this film.
– Marie Valentine Regan
| Name | Donate Amount | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Judson Evans | $10.00 | April 23, 2024 |
| Sabine Miller | $10.00 | April 23, 2024 |
| Cody Tumblin | $20.00 | April 08, 2024 |
| Petra Costa | $500.00 | February 27, 2024 |
| Anthony Schneider | $40.00 | February 25, 2024 |
| Debbie & Todd Charles Chisholm | $200.00 | February 24, 2024 |
| Heather Moore | $250.00 | February 24, 2024 |
| Dolissa Medina | $20.00 | February 24, 2024 |
| Megan James | $100.00 | February 24, 2024 |
| John Anderson | $100.00 | February 24, 2024 |
| zeynep nuhoglu | $50.00 | February 23, 2024 |
| Barjeel Foundation for Art | $5,000.00 | January 26, 2024 |
| Bendik Sandnes Vada | $20.00 | January 18, 2024 |
| ANNE AGHION | $150.00 | January 18, 2024 |
| Anonymous Donation | $10,000.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Anna Doerig | $350.00 | January 17, 2024 |
| Nelson Kim | $40.00 | January 15, 2024 |
| Kristin Sanders | $100.00 | January 09, 2024 |
| Lee Ann Brown | $100.00 | January 08, 2024 |
| Alisha Mascarenhas | $30.00 | January 05, 2024 |
| Rebekah Rutkoff | $20.00 | January 05, 2024 |
| Dale Going | $50.00 | January 04, 2024 |
| Stephen Graham | $500.00 | January 03, 2024 |
| Robin Tremblay-McGaw | $50.00 | January 02, 2024 |
| Gillian Osborne | $20.00 | January 02, 2024 |
| Elisabeth Subrin | $35.00 | January 01, 2024 |
| Lynne Sachs | $250.00 | January 01, 2024 |
| Carrie Chappell | $25.00 | January 01, 2024 |
| Robert Marshall | $200.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt | $25.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Anna Gurton-Wachter | $50.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| David Agnew | $1,000.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Lynne Tillman | $100.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Tal Yarden | $100.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Julie Regan | $100.00 | December 31, 2023 |
| Matthew Hintz | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Ed Hellman | $100.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Karen Sztajnberg | $300.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Carol Snow | $40.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Elena Rivera | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Kit Fraser | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Lily Gurton-Wachter | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Wah-Ming Chang | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Anonymous | $1,000.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Denise Newman | $25.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Andrea Quaid | $25.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Laura Mullen | $100.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Christopher Schmidt | $100.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| liz deschenes | $40.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Helene Harder | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Luis Renner | $10.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Anonymous | $50.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Tanya Ward Goodman | $100.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| JOHN ANDERSON | $100.00 | December 30, 2023 |
| Christina Davis | $50.00 | December 29, 2023 |
| COLE SWENSEN | $1,000.00 | December 29, 2023 |