Gunvor Nelson(1931-2025)

Gunvor Eleonora Grundel Nelson, born in Stockholm, Sweden, is director, cinematographer and editor of avant-garde film. She studied at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts & Design and after moving to California, USA, art and art history. Gunvor met her future husband Robert Nelson at California School of Fine Arts. The Nelson couple was a vital part of the new film culture that grew up in the San Francisco area and they played a significant role in the film cooperative Canyon Cinema, one of America's oldest and most respected. Gunvor Nelson made her first two films along with Dorothy Wiley. Wiley was married to artist William T. Wiley, made movies with Robert Nelson. Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley's debut "Schmeerguntz" (1966) is a humorous and grotesque feminist classics where young mother's everyday contrasted with the American ideal of women. Gunvor Nelson's filmmaking is uncompromising and she represents a unique voice in the experimental film. Self denotes she her films as "personal films". A common feature is the strong link to her own life and her own experiences. The early films based on a young woman's world of experience, and culminates in "My Name Is Oona" (1969), an expressive portrait of her daughter, and the "Moon Pool "(1973), an existential-expressive underwater journey, circling around the own body. Gunvor Nelson was engaged as film teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1970 to 1992. She returned to Sweden in December 1992. Gunvor Nelson has so far directed a large number of short, documentary and feature films.