Moira Sullivan

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Moira Sullivan is an international feminist film critic, experimental filmmaker and cineaste based in Stockholm, Sweden and San Francisco. Her long experience in Sweden began through a cultural exchange program from the University of California to Lund University, Sweden in 1976. Sullivan studied film at a special program for small film production at St Erik's Folkhögskola. Her student exam film concerned a threatening housing area called Kvarteret Mullvaden which was to be gentrified. An experimental film and her Swedish experience in filmmaking garnished her acceptance to the Cinema Studies Department at Stockholm University and later to the Graduate Film Department at San Francisco State. Sullivan wrote her doctoral thesis, An Anagram of the Ideas of Filmmaker Maya Deren in 1997 based on archival research from Boston University and archival films at Anthology Film Archives in New York on filmmaker Maya Deren. She was awarded a doctorate at Stockholm University the same year. Sullivan is considered one of the world's experts on Deren and has been invited to special programs honoring the legendary filmmaker in Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and the USA. She contributed to the anthology on Deren edited by Bill Nichols in 2000 entitled Maya Deren and the American Avantgarde.

Sullivan started together with Anna Kindgren and Yvonne Eriksson a Swedish cinema forum at Kvinnohuset (Women's House) in Stockholm called Freja Film in the 1980's. The UN declared Freja Film at a special conference to be the international contact organization for women's films. Sullivan is currently a member of the European Coordination of Women's Film Festivals.

Sullivan worked with the Swedish actress Pia Garde in the 1980's who is currently working on the memoirs of the late Swedish writer Karin Boye. In 1995 Sullivan and entertainer and vocalist Ulrika Skogby became one of the first lesbian couples to register their relationship after registered partnerships became legal in Sweden. Registered partnerships in Sweden are regarded as civil unions granting all rights to same sex couples, except the title "marriage", and a church ceremony. Some Swedish churches however do perform ceremonies. Sullivan and Skogby collaborated on music and film events in Stockholm from 1992-2006.

In 2000 Sullivan became a citizen of Sweden, making her one of the first dual nationals from the USA, after the State Department allowed Americans to become Swedish citizens. The restriction was in place because of statements made by the late Olof Palme criticizing US foreign policy in Vietnam.

Sullivan's experimental films made in Skala Eressos, Lesbos in Greece feature international lesbians.Vagina Dentata , a spoof on films featuring monsters with teeth appeared on Canal Plus in 1999, and was shown at the Bay Area Burning Man Festival. On the Highway with My Girlfriend was shown at the Denver Underground Film Festival in 2003.

Sullivan's website CinéFemme[1] is a collection of witty articles on women in the media. She regularly covers the Créteil Films de Femmes Festival[2] and Cineffable Lesbian Film Festival.[3] [4]She is also a regular staff writer for Movie Magazine International in San Francisco and can be heard every week nationally and on web satellite around the world. Her film reviews have appeared in various publications including Greencine, The Local Swedish Bulletin, and on the Swedish National Radio. [5] Professional societies include the Swedish Film Critics Association, [6] and the Society for Cinema Studies.[7]