Wanda the Wonderful

Skidmore College John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) Program Storytellers' Institute Presents: Carolyn Macartney She had four husbands, but she only shot one of them. Wanda the Wonderful is a mixed-genre documentary Western, about a 1920's era gun slinging wild-woman, Wanda, and her journey from Indian Territory to sheep country, via the circus, Vaudeville, Hollywood and a brothel. It is a story about sacrifice, family, and the American West, what it means to forge your own way, and the realities behind a glamorous and exciting lifestyle. Mixing narrative and documentary approaches to storytelling, Carolyn Macartney's film combines dramatic narrative, interviews, archival photographs, and 16mm atmospheric footage. Centering on Wanda's relationship with her fourth husband, Wyoming sheep rancher Carl Hampton, Wanda's photographs along with interviews with family and friends flush out the stories and expand our understanding of the characters and family. Carolyn Macartney works in photography and film, and hybrids thereof. She made her first film with a Double 8mm film camera that she found in her granny's attic to accompany her original electronic music composition. She included in this film B&W still photographs that she printed out (by hand in the darkroom) and then animated. The raw, provocative, fallible side of humanity is what interests her most. Carolyn's films have won awards at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Onion City Film Festival, Houston Worldfest and other juried screenings and have enjoyed success in screenings and festivals around the world. She has fourteen years of professional experience as a Director of Photography, having shot four feature length narrative films as well as numerous music videos, commercials, short films and documentaries. Carolyn's award winning still photography has been published and exhibited in the US and Europe. Among other honors, Carolyn has received an award for music composition, a DAAD scholarship to study painting at the Hochscule der Künste in Berlin, Germany, and a Kodak Faculty Scholars Award. Carolyn has lived in five different countries and in as many States within America. She received her BA in Art from Smith College and her MFA in Filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.