The Soft Course

Mildred "Chick" Strand (December 3, 1931 – July 11, 2009) was an American experimental filmmaker and ethnographer based in California and Mexico. Chick Strand's filmmaking approach combined anthropological methods with experimental filmmaking techniques, and incorporated personal elements from her own life experiences with societal forces and realities. Strand contributed to the movement of women's experimental cinema in the early 1960s–1970's as "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary" Strand also influenced the independent filmmaking movement of the 1960s as the editor of Canyon CinemaNews. Feminist issues and anthropological inquiries about the human condition are frequent themes in Strand's films. However, because Strand's films and work were often deeply personal and subjective, they were often rejected from male-dominated academic circles of anthropologists and critiqued for being non-academic works.