Film Junkie

Stacks upon stacks of gray canisters containing old French, British and American films cover the tables and floor of a spare room somewhere in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Buried at the bottom of that pile is Bonnie MacAllister ’99.

MacAllister, an office manager and production assistant for the Information Services and Audio Visual departments of the museum, was chosen to design the film component for the upcoming exhibition, Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli. "I’m fluent in French so I was able to understand the French films, plus I’m an independent filmmaker," she says. The exhibition will run September 28, 2003 to January 4, 2004 in the Dorrance Galleries of the museum.

The Schiaparelli exhibition will be the first major retrospective and catalogue to examine the ways in which Schiaparelli’s creations mirrored the social, political and cultural climate of her times. "She was a pioneering woman who created a whole international movement with her designs," says MacAllister. Schiaparelli’s contemporaries considered her the style authority of the 1930s.

The catalogue, which is being curated by Dilys Blum, will be lavishly illustrated with reproductions, originals from the designer herself, fashion sketches, works by the period’s leading photographers and an extensive filmography.

As for the film element of the exhibition, MacAllister says, "We still have a lot of time so I’m still doing some research. Then in two months from now I’ll do a rough cut of the film." Although plans are not finalized, MacAllister envisions a four video monitor setup, which would display old film footage from many of Schiaparelli’s fashion shows.

When MacAllister’s not at the museum, she spends much of her free time with film as well. She has two independent film projects that deal with different aspects of life in Philadelphia currently in the works. The first is a profile of elderly men in south Philadelphia that was shot on video, which she is currently editing digitally. She is also putting together a Super 8 short film on 20-something men and women in the city. "I’m using some sound along with silent film. My videos are more visual and non-narrative," she says.

Many of these techniques, she says, she learned in Gary Adlestein’s film classes at Albright. "He really opened my eyes to film and taught me how to edit," she says. She plans to market her independent films in festivals. "I am planning on screening some of my films next year with Berks Filmmakers in Reading and I’m also submitting them to national independent festivals," she says.

While films may take up a lot of her time, MacAllister also finds time to deejay at various clubs and art galleries throughout the city. Most recently she "spun" at the Peng Gallery in Philadelphia. "I spin French pop, soul, funk and Indie pop mostly," she says. This interest was also a part of her Albright experience. MacAllister was a deejay for Albright’s radio station WXAC for four years. "It helped me to learn sound and audio mixing," she says.

As for the future, MacAllister says she hopes her experiences with both film and music will pay off someday. "I would like to be a producer and editor of independent films." Hopefully, she says, "I’ll have my own production company take off by the time I am 30."

-- Amy M. Buzinski ’03