Gloria’s Call

Directed by Cheri Gaulke

In 1971, graduate student Gloria Orenstein received a call from Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington that sparked a lifelong journey into art, ecofeminism and shamanism. The short film, Gloria’s Call, uses art, animation and storytelling to celebrate this wild adventure. Now more than 40 years later, award-winning Dr. Gloria Feman Orenstein is a feminist art critic and pioneer scholar of women in Surrealism and ecofeminism in the arts. Her delightful tale brings alive an often unseen history of women in the arts.

About the Director

Cheri Gaulke

Writer/Director/Producer/Editor Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles. Her work has been presented in film festivals internationally, in museums and a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and alternative settings including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples. In recent years, her short doc, GLORIA'S CALL (2018), has screened in over 40 festivals and won Best Documentary at the Ann Arbor Film Festival among other awards. In 2021, she completed MISS ALMA THOMAS: A LIFE IN COLOR, a short doc about a little known African-American woman abstract painter, which is already winning awards in film festivals, and she is just completing INSIDE THE BEAUTY BUBBLE, a short doc about a gay hair salon owner and his roadside attraction in Joshua Tree, California. She is currently in pre-production on her first feature documentary – ACTING LIKE WOMEN – about 1970s feminist performance art, an under-represented movement that profoundly shaped art and social movements of today.

Learn more at cherigaulke.com.

Director's Statement

I love making films that help audiences understand art and artists. In this film we accompany Gloria on a personal journey into the lives of artists to learn what motivates them to create. I am also passionate about promoting under-represented artists and these women of Surrealism have certainly not gotten their due. Let's celebrate women artists and this delightful scholar, Gloria Orenstein, who championed their work.

Crew

Cheri Gaulke | Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, and Animator

Anne Gauldin | Producer, Writer, and Animator

J. Cheryl Bookout | Producer and Animator

Sue Maberry | Producer and Animator

Christine Papalexis | Producer and Animator

Miriam Cutler | Music Composer