CALL HER APPLEBROOG is a deeply personal portrait about Ida Applebroog, a painter, sculptor and filmmaker whose work often explores the themes of gender, sexual identity, violence and politics shot by her filmmaker daughter, Beth B. Born in the Bronx to Orthodox Jewish émigrés from Poland, Applebroog, now in her 80s, looks back at how she expressed herself through decades of drawings and paintings, as well as her private journals. The film charts the artists journey from a young child, to her early career working on Madison Avenue in an advertising agency in the 1950s, to the breakdown she experienced, then as Ida Horowitz, in 1968, during which time the artist was hospitalized. The film documents her resolve to return to New York in 1974 where she renamed herself Applebroog, and established herself as a leading artist and participant in the women’s movement. CALL HER APPLEBROOG was premiered in February 2016 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York’s Doc Fortnight.
The full film will be screened in the lecture theatre, followed by Beth B and Ida Applebroog in conversation, concluding with a reception.
Beth B exploded onto the New York film scene in the late ‘70s, after receiving her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1977. These breakthrough films, such as Black Box, Vortex, and The Offenders, were shown at Max’s Kansas City, CBGB’s, the New York Film Festival and the Film Forum. These and more recent films have been shown at, and acquired by, the Whitney Museum and MoMA. During her prolific career, Beth B has produced over 30 films within the narrative, documentary, and experimental genres. She has produced and directed narrative independent films and cable television productions, mounted large-scale art installations as well as creating a theatrical production for BAM’s Artist in Action series. Her work has been shown at The Sundance Film Festival, The New York Film Festival, The Berlin Film Festival, The Locarno Film Festival and in galleries and museums including MoMA, the Whitney Biennial, the Tate Modern, the Pompidou Center, Deitch Projects, and PPOW Gallery.