A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Eleonora Derenkowsky
Birthplace:
Kyiv, Ukraine
Born:
April 29, 1917
Died:
October 13, 1961
Maya Deren (April 29, 1917 – October 13, 1961), born Eleonora Derenkowska (Ukrainian: Елеоно́ра Деренко́вська), was one of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer and photographer.
Book:
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
Cinematography:
1949 Meditation on Violence
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
Director:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
Director of Photography:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
Editor:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
Music:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
2012 Maya Deren, Take Zero
Original Film Writer:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
2012 Maya Deren, Take Zero
2024 Alter Ego Film Project
Producer:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
2012 Maya Deren, Take Zero
2024 Alter Ego Film Project
Sound:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
2012 Maya Deren, Take Zero
2023 Vever (For Barbara)
2024 Alter Ego Film Project
Writer:
1943 Meshes of the Afternoon
1944 At Land
1944 Witch's Cradle
1945 A Study in Choreography for Camera
1946 Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946 The Private Life of a Cat
1949 Meditation on Violence
1949 Medusa
1951 Ensemble for Somnambulists
1958 The Very Eye of Night
1959 Season of Strangers
1975 A Study in Choreography for Camera - Outtakes
1993 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
2002 Maya Deren - Experimental Films
2006 Cinema16: American Short Films
2012 Maya Deren, Take Zero
2023 Vever (For Barbara)
2024 Alter Ego Film Project
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.