Amy Halpern (1953-2022) occupies a singular place in the history of American experimental cinema. She was a key figure who took part in many legendary film shoots and artistic projects, a tireless organizer who co-founded or directed several filmmakers’ associations, and, at the same time, an original and prolific filmmaker in her own right, whose works remained, until very recently, in the shadow of her contemporaries.

Born in New York, Halpern devoted herself to contemporary dance from an early age. In the early 1970s, as a student at Binghamton University, she rubbed shoulders with Hollis Frampton, Peter Kubelka, and Paul Sharits, as well as Larry Gottheim and Ken Jacobs who became close friends and collaborators. Later, while studying at UCLA, she worked as a gaffer (a profession she would continue to exercise for years) on the shoots of Charles Burnett and Julie Dash, important figures in the movement of Black American filmmakers known as the “LA Rebellion”. In the second half of the decade, she became close to the Angeleno experimental scene as a programmer and performer. Perceptive viewers will recognize her face in Chick Strand’s Soft Fiction (1979) and, more fleetingly, in Pat O’Neill’s Water and Power (1989).

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