Babeth Mondini-VanLoo, photo by fellow student Stanley Greene for the cover of the SFAI student paper, December, 1976.

As an SFAI student, Babeth VanLoo was so well known around campus that when this issue of the SFAEYE was published, there was no need to identify her. She was born in the Netherlands; came to SFAI to study filmmaking with George Kuchar; and married SFAI Humanities professor Ray Mondini. Babeth worked for the magazine Search and Destroy, and with her Bolex camera interviewed and filmed many of the SF punk bands and other bands that came to the City. Her film Berlin Wall and The Sex Pistols combines footage shot in SF and Berlin. In 2000, she founded the first Buddhist television broadcasting channel in the Western world (in the Netherlands) and is the director of the International Buddhist Film Festival. Her short film Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Art of Bodybuilding (1977–2019) is based on 16mm footage VanLoo shot as a student during the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest in San Francisco, with an interview of Schwarzenegger by Mondini. A 1977 episode of The Streets of San Francisco, “Dead Lift,” included Schwarzenegger as a bodybuilder and part-time model at SFAI who is suspected of murder. Schwarzenegger later became governor of California. For MORE see Nina Zurier’s complete text & supplemental info at: Orbits of Known and Unknown Objects: SFAI Histories, Matrix 277.

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.