A documentary film directed by Cheri Gaulke about feminist performance art and the Woman's Building in 1970s-80s Los Angeles
A documentary film directed by Cheri Gaulke about feminist performance art and the Woman's Building in 1970s-80s Los Angeles
When feminist performance art burst onto the L.A. scene in 1970, a community of women artists changed their lives and the very role of art. ACTING LIKE WOMEN is a personal and collective journey into gender, art and activism – intimately told by those who lived it. At the film’s center is the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles – an incubator for some of the most innovative, fearless and still-relevant work in the history of performance art. It was a birthplace for radical new ideas that made the art world take notice and laid the groundwork for future art and social justice movements.
PRODUCTION MILESTONES
Director/Writer/Producer Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles and an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened in national and international film festivals. Gaulke’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and in settings all over the world including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples. Known for her solo performance art, she also co-founded the collaborative performance groups Feminist Art Workers and Sisters Of Survival which were featured in a Getty-sponsored exhibition. Recent films include: Gloria's Call traveled to over 40 film festivals and won Best Documentary at Ann Arbor Film Festival and screened at the Venice Biennale; Miss Alma Thomas: A Life in Color is traveling with a museum retrospective about this African-American artist; and Inside the Beauty Bubble won the Audience Award at San Luis Obispo Film Festival and Dances with Films.
Writer-Producer Anne Gauldin is a feminist artist, graphic designer, and business entrepreneur. She received her M.A. through the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Los Angeles Woman’s Building, exploring prehistoric archaeological sites in Western Europe and contemporary feminist art and education. Gauldin served as the Slide Librarian at the Woman’s Building overseeing the archives and the Center for Feminist Art Historical Studies collection created by Arlene Raven and Ruth Iskin. Gauldin was a founding member of The Waitresses and Sisters Of Survival performance art collectives, worked as a typographer in the Women’s Graphic Center and ran her own successful graphic design company for many years. Recently she collaborated with Cheri Gaulke as a producer and writer of the 2018 documentary film Gloria’s Call. Gauldin’s work has been exhibited and performed both nationally and internationally.
Lead Producer Meg Linton is an independent curator, writer, and producer with 22+ years experience running non-profit and academic contemporary art spaces in Southern California and has dedicated her career to helping artists produce their best work. Linton was the co-curator and lead organizer of Doin' It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building that was part of the The Getty's initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 in 2011. She has conceived and organized hundreds of exhibitions, publications, events, and videos in her various roles as: Director of Galleries and Exhibitions at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design (2003-2014); Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (1999-2003); Curator of Exhibitions at the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach (1997-1999).
Producer J. Cheryl Bookout is an artist, curator, nonprofit administrator and arts advocate. Bookout is currently the Executive Director of The Chimaera Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for filmmakers identifying as female; 2012-2016 President of the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art; currently a board member for Mil-Tree Veteran Project and the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. She has coordinated large-scale collaborative public art projects such as Envisioning the Future (2000-2003) with renowned artist Judy Chicago and 80 artists from the greater Southern California region. Bookout has co-produced three short films: I Am Be (2016) and Gloria’s Call (2018) directed by Cheri Gaulke and is the co-director with Cheri Gaulke of the short documentary film Inside the Beauty Bubble (2021). She currently has a sci-fi episodic and a UN project in development.
Director of Photography Kristy Tully is a Documentary Cinematographer with films shown at Sundance, SXSW, San Francisco Film Festival, Big Sky and several others. Her narrative work on the film The Women won Best Cinematography at the Woman's Comedy Film Festival in Chicago in 2021. Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivens took the Audience Award at SXSW in 2019. She also employs her storytelling skills working as a camera operator on narrative films and television such as HBO’s We're Here. More recently she filmed the Netflix Original film Feminists: What Were They Thinking?
Editor Susan Metzger has edited feature documentaries, Thank You for Coming, Right Footed and Democracy at Work. The recent Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust won Best Documentary at San Diego Asian Film Festival and was an awards finalist at Big Sky Documentary Festival. She has edited a range of short content – from cheeky environmental webisodes for Darryl Hannah, to interviews with golf caddies in Scotland, to an experimental film about a poet in grief. Her episode Artist and Mother for KCET’s Artbound is one of its most popular. She edited Cheri Gaulke and Cheryl Bookout’s recent doc Inside the Beauty Bubble. Metzger is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts where she was mentored by Academy Award-winning editor Kate Amend.
Story Consultant Nick Lieberman is a Los Angeles–based writer-director. He has made music videos with a variety of artists, including Ben Platt and Remi Wolf, and his commercial work includes projects with Samsung, Billboard, and Fendi. Theater Camp (2023), his feature directorial debut, premiered at Sundance (U.S. Dramatic Jury Prize for Ensemble) and was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards (Best First Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Supporting Performance). Theater Camp is streaming on Hulu.
Composer Miriam Cutler emerged on the women’s music scene in the 1970s as a solo artist and member of the New Miss Alice Stone Ladies Society Orchestra. She performed in 1975 for the Building Women concert that included performances by Lily Tomlin, Holly Near and other iconic feminist performers of the day. She is now one of the most sought after composers for documentary films including most recently RBG, Dark Money, The Hunting Ground, and Love, Gilda. Miriam Cutler is passionate about scoring documentaries, among them Emmy-winning, Sundance, and Oscar-nominated films. Cutler has scored over 100 films and television programs, written songs for film and tv, created music for circus and theater projects, produced and recorded albums, and performed live in many bands and venues. Cutler has composed music for several of Gaulke’s films and they have an excellent working relationship.
Animator C. Lily Ericsson is an artist working in Sarasota, Florida. She received an MFA in experimental animation from CalArts-California Institute of the Arts. Her art has taken many forms, from installation and parade, to animation and projection, from documentary to science fiction. Recent Films include Footage from the Geologic Intelligence Lab, 2018; Blue Rocks, 2017; and Angular Unconformity, 2016. She created animation for Gaulke's previous films Gloria's Call and Inside the Beauty Bubble.
Women Make Movies
ACTING LIKE WOMEN is a Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project. Established in 1972, Women Make Movies is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State. As the fiscal sponsor, WMM accepts donations or grants on behalf of the filmmaker and takes the responsibility of administering the funds received in support of the development and completion of the film.
We’re thrilled to announce that Metabolic Studio has joined as a partner in support of Acting Like Women. Led by artist Lauren Bon, Metabolic Studio is a Los Angeles-based art and research hub addressing social and environmental issues through innovative art projects. This partnership builds on a rich history: in 2016, Lauren Bon invited the Woman's Building to join Metabolic Studio’s Special Project in Archiving. Artists gathered to preserve and share stories, culminating in fellowships for 15 emerging women artists to create works inspired by the Woman’s Building and the feminist art movement. Thank you, Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio, for your commitment to uncovering unseen histories and championing this vital work!
We are grateful to all of our funders: Metabolic Studio, California Humanities-California Documentary Project, The Puffin Foundation, Monette-Horwitz Trust, Rainbow Pineapple Foundation Fund and countless individual donors, especially Ann Isolde, Kayla Tange+Kevin Kane, Martha Trolin+Loretta Atkins, and Jason Reitman.
Our scholar and production advisors include:
To make a tax-deductible contribution, you may donate to the project via our fiscal sponsor Women Make Movies using the link below. Thank you for joining our team!
Our California Humanities grant has been rescinded by the current federal administration. Help us make up for this loss of funding. All donations are Tax-Deductible!