Clouds (1970)

Asked about her artistic practice after her return to the United States, Hafif said: ‘I wanted to take a break from painting and try out other creative methods. So I bought a Super 8 camera and photography equipment. The first film I produced was the best I ever made. I shot on black-and-white stock and kept the camera trained on a single cloud for three minutes. The cloud slowly changed shape and floated away.’ In the cloud, Hafif seized on a motif with a long tradition in the history of painting. The film’s ‘action’, too, prompts associations with painting: the sky appears as a ground on which the clouds stirs like a mass of paint applied with a brush. A bird crossing the screen anchors the scenery in the specific filming location: California’s Pacific coast.