Where we are
Body of Work is in post-production.
The film was an invited participant in Ifp’s 2007 Rough Cut Documentary Lab and 2008 Independent Film Week.
Ifp is our fiscal sponsor, and we are currently seeking finishing funds.
Synopsis
My mom always says, “You know who you are by what you make.” I’m 26 now, and since I was 7, I have posed nude for controversial photographer Jock Sturges. Looking back over the images we made together I wonder, what do the images tell me about myself? Drawing upon hundreds of hours of home movie footage and hand-drawn animation sequences, Body of Work, a feature-length documentary, chronicles my transition from girl to woman and ultimately, from subject to artist.
People in the Film/Crew
Kai Beverly-Whittemore (American, b. 1983/Director/ DP/ Producer/Editor/Subject)
Born in 1983, Kai Beverly-Whittemore began posing for photographer Jock Sturges as a child;
her essay about their collaboration appeared in Sturges’ Notes. Beverly-Whittemore studied
visual art and philosophy at the University of Chicago (BA 2005 honors) under a merit-based full-tuition
scholarship. Her shorts, Elsa Over Head (2004) and Unfixed (2005) screened at DocFilms and the Ukrainian
Institute of Modern Art’s Body Image Show, respectively. Her film Body Of Work was invited to the
2007 ifp Documentary Rough Cut Lab and ifp’s 2008 Independent Film Week. Kai and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
are collaborating on the screenplay adaptation of Miranda’s novel, The Effects of Light. which was
shortlisted for the 2009 Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. Her short, Half a Stop was recently awarded honorable
mention from Killer Films/Massify.com Online Production Grant.
Jock Sturges (American, b.1947/Subject)
Born in New York City in 1947, Sturges earned his B.F.A. in Perceptual Psychology and Photography from Marlboro
College and went on to receive his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work is in the collections
of major institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
The Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; The Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art; and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
His work is published in numerous monographs, most recently Jock Sturges, New Work 1996-2000 (Scalo, 2000).
Jock works on the naturist beaches of Southern France where he has been photographing his subjects for over twenty-five years.
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore (American, b.1976/Associate Producer/Subject)
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore attended Vassar College, where she received the Fiction Prize,
and from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1998, with general and departmental honors. Her first novel, The Effects of Light(Warner Books, 2005), about two girls photographed nude by a friend of their
family, was called an "ambitious first novel" by the New York Times. Her second novel, Set Me Free, was published by Warner Books in March 2007. Miranda is currently collaborating with Kai Beverly- Whittemore
on a screenplay adaptation of The Effects of Light.
Mona Kuhn (German, American, b.1969/Subject)
Mona Kuhn was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1969, of German descent.
She earned her degree in the United States from Ohio State University.
Since 1998, she has been an independent studies scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Her work has been exhibited, and is included in public and private collections, internationally
and in the United States. Kuhn’s first monograph, Photographs, was debuted by Steidl in 2004; her follow-up, Evidence, was also published by Steidl and released in Spring 2007. Mona Kuhn has lectured about her work
at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Georgia Museum of Art, and is a visiting artist at The Pasadena Arts Center.
She lives and works in Los Angeles.