The Star Eaters


Peggy Ahwesh

Artist Bio

The Star Eaters is a 70-minute narrative video. The story of The Star Eaters merges the enigma of the night sky, its intoxication and desire, with the exhaustion and emotional decay of the boardwalk in Atlantic City. The film is told from the point of view of a woman adrift in the gambling joints and false-glamour of Atlantic City and her relationships with various hustlers, the ocean, her ex-lovers, and her own memory. The themes of the film are gambling, risk taking, transgression, and the quest for meaning.


Discipline
Narrative Film
Award Year
2000
Status

Completed

Peggy Ahwesh

Peggy Ahwesh

Brooklyn, NY

Peggy Ahwesh came of age in the 1970’s with feminist politics and the experimental film underground. Her formative years were spent in Pittsburgh where she worked for horror director George Romero and as a film programmer at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Inc. Originally she worked in the Super 8mm film format and now works in film, video, and digital media. A mid-career retrospective of her work called Girls Beware! was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997. Her works The Deadman, Martina’s Playhouse and Nocturne are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Ahwesh’s She Puppet premiered at the New York Video Festival and has screened in Animations at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, the Rotterdam International Film Festival ,and the 2002 Whitney Biennial exhibition. Ahwesh is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts.