Margaret Haines’s latest films are multifaceted meandering narratives riddled with philosophical investigation. Her shooting and editing style merges points of view, mixes staged scenes with improvised encounters. Haines’s frame oscillates between a myriad of traditional cinema styles, from Hollywood fiction film to cinéma vérité, in the creation of a unique form. The films are rife with colliding references to the works of Jean Genet, Kate Millett, Adorno, and allusions to ancient Greek mythology, corporate America, celebrity culture, Astrology, and Thrasher magazine. The result is an examination of culture and aesthetics that stretches the definitions of what is poetically and politically possible within the moving image art category of short film.
She studied at the California Institute of the Arts, has exhibited in London, Brussels, The Hague, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and the musée d’art contemporain MAC in Montréal, and is a former resident of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam.
She is completing her forthcoming book on the life and work of the artist, poet, actress and occultist Marjorie Cameron Parsons, whilst in post production on two films: the short On Air: Purity, Corruption & Pollution set in Paris which takes as methodological model the concept of ‘la jumelle de Jésus’ and stars Jette Hermanis, Livia Hendrickson and Arvida Bystrom; and, the narrative documentary Pluto is Raging with co-writer and creative producer Steph Kretowicz of AQNB, lensed by cinematographer Ava Shorr, starring Ilana Kozlov and Cynthia McAdams, and in collaboration with the Carroll Righter Astrology Foundation in Los Angeles. Margaret is a lecturer on the history of the occult and contemporary film at Sciences Po in Paris.
