Director to Speak at Florida Southern and Polk Museum of Art

Film director Annie J. Howell will speak about her film, “Claire in Motion,” at two upcoming events.

Howell will present a lecture at Florida Southern College on March 29 at 5 p.m. in the Thrift Alumni Room. She will screen clips from her work, “Beautifully Moving Parts” and “Claire in Motion.”

On March 30, she will take part in the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College’s second edition of The Art of Film, a series that began in February. “Claire in Motion” is the featured film at this free event. The museum’s galleries open for viewing at 6 p.m. and showtime is 6:30 p.m. A Q&A with Howell takes place at the film’s conclusion.

Howell is an alumna of Whitman College, New York University's graduate film program, the Screenwriters Colony, and IFP’s Emerging Narrative. She teaches in the graduate film program at the City College of New York. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons.

In addition to co-directing “Claire in Motion” with Lisa Robinson, Howell wrote the screenplay for “Little Boxes,” directed by Rob Meyer and starring Melanie Lynskey and Nelsan Ellis, which premiered in 2016 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Netflix purchased the film. The “Little Boxes” script received an Independent Filmmaker Project Emerging Narrative Award for Best Feature, and a San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation grant.

“Claire in Motion” is about a woman who is sure of herself, her work and her family until her husband disappears, leaving a trail of puzzling secrets that shatter her certainty.

The Art of Film features films that often echo the themes of one of the museum's current exhibitions, and includes internationally-renowned independent and arts-related movies. The series exposes attendees to films that aren’t likely to be seen elsewhere in the community, and encourages the viewing of films “more from the standpoint of appreciating filmmaking as an art instead of just an entertainment form,” said Matthew Herbertz, a filmmaker and film studies professor at Florida Southern who helped create the series.

Herbertz, who worked on the production of “Claire in Motion” as a gaffer and Steadicam operator, will lead the Q&A.

Registration is requested but not required: https://polkmuseumofart.org/upcoming-events/filmfeb18.