Melon Patches, or Reasons to Go On Living

Melon Patches, or Reasons to Go On Living

Anne Charlotte Robertson

US
1994
Documentary
25’
OFe
Focus

One of the most positive films from the Super 8 epic Five Year Diary, in which Anne Charlotte Robertson and her family feast on melons after months of careful cultivation.
»I had no children. All I had was a garden,« says the film-maker.
Planting seeds in the ground is a life-affirming activity. Because whatever the gardener’s mental state might be, there is at least a hope that they will be able to survive this year’s harvest.

Director / Cinematographer

Anne Charlotte Robertson

Contact

Harvard University – Harvard Film Archive

Anne Charlotte Robertson

Anne Charlotte Robertson was a Super 8 film-maker and diarist who lived in Framingham, Massachusetts. She began making films in the mid-1970s as an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and earned her MFA at the Massachusetts College of Art. Her main work is the 38-hour opus Five Year Diary which she began in 1981 and kept for over five years. Each episode of the diary, spanning varying numbers of days, is 27 minutes long (approximately eight camera rolls) and the diary comprises 84 reels. In addition to the Five Year Diary, she also made over 30 other short films.


Films by Anne Charlotte Robertson (Selection)
A Short Affair (and) Going Crazy 1982/1996 | A Breakdown (and) after the Mental Hospital 1982/1991 | Apologies 1983–1990 | Locomotion 1981