Browse Films

Array
(
    [id] => 420
    [title] => Sin by Silence
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/sin-by-silence
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/sin-by-silence/320x-SinBySig_HiRes.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2009
    [text] => From behind prison walls, a group of extraordinary women are shattering misconceptions of domestic violence. An important film that profiles Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA), the US prison system’s first inmate initiated group and led by women, SIN BY SILENCE is an essential resource featuring more than two hours of bonus materials, including interviews with experts on abusive relationships, law enforcement leaders and leaders in faith-based communities about domestic violence, and more.

Created by Brenda Clubine in 1989, CWAA has changed laws for battered women, raised awareness for those on the outside, and educated a system that does not fully comprehend the complexities of domestic abuse. Like many CWAA members, Brenda’s years of inflicted abuse were never fully revealed. But because of CWAA’s work and advocacy, new laws were enacted that now allow incarcerated survivors to challenge their original conviction. With unprecedented access inside the California Institution for Women, this emotionally packed documentary tells the stories of courageous women who have learned from their past, are changing their future, and teaching us how domestic violence affects each and every person.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/sin-by-silence/SinBySig_HiRes.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 418
    [title] => Mrs. Goundo's Daughter
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/mrs-goundos-daughter
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/mrs-goundos-daughter/320x-goundo_hires2-beforeexcision.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2009
    [text] => Mrs. Goundo is fighting to remain in the United States. But it’s not just because of the ethnic conflict and drought that has plagued her native Mali. Threatened with deportation, her two-year-old daughter could be forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), like 85 percent of women and girls in Mali. Using rarely cited grounds for political asylum, Goundo must convince an immigration judge that her daughter is in danger. 

Sensitive and moving, this important film reveals how women are profoundly affected by the legal struggles surrounding immigration. As issues of asylum, international law and human rights collide with FGM and its devastating health consequences, filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater travel between an FGM ceremony in a Malian village, where dozens of girls are involved, to the West African expatriate community of Philadelphia, where Mrs. Goundo challenges beliefs and battles the American legal system for her child’s future.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/mrs-goundos-daughter/goundo_hires2-beforeexcision.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 429
    [title] => A Crushing Love
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/a-crushing-love
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/a-crushing-love/320x-cbe_Untitled-2.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2009
    [text] => A CRUSHING LOVE, Sylvia Morales’ sequel to her groundbreaking history of Chicana women, CHICANA (1979), honors the achievements of five activist Latinas—labor organizer/farm worker leader Dolores Huerta, author/educator Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, writer/playwright/educator Cherrie Moraga, civil rights advocate Alicia Escalante, and historian/writer Martha Cotera - and considers how these single mothers managed to be parents and effect broad-based social change at the same time.  

Questions about reconciling competing demands are ones that highly acclaimed filmmaker Sylvia Morales, a working mother of two herself, pondered aloud as she prepared this documentary. Historical footage and recent interviews with each woman reveal their contributions to key struggles for Latino empowerment and other major movements of our time. Both they and their grown children thoughtfully explore the challenges, adaptations, rewards, and missteps involved in juggling dual roles. Scenes of Morales at work and at home, often humorously overlaid with her teenage daughter’s commentary, bring the dilemma up to date. Chicana continues to be used in classrooms more than thirty years after it was made; A CRUSHING LOVE is a memorable sequel which offers us indelible portraits of unforgettable women, including one of Morales herself.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/a-crushing-love/cbe_Untitled-2.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 411
    [title] => Shooting Women
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/shooting-women
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/shooting-women/320x-shootingwomen_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Featuring more than 50 camerawomen from around the world, SHOOTING WOMEN, by pioneering filmmaker and cinema studies professor Alexis Krasilovsky, celebrates the amazing talent and unflinching spirit of image-making women from the sets of Hollywood and Bollywood to the war zones of Afghanistan.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/shooting-women/shootingwomen_hires.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 442
    [title] => Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/blessed-is-the-match-the-life-and-death-of-hannah-senesh
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/blessed-is-the-match-the-life-and-death-of-hannah-senesh/320x-cbi_blessed.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => At only 22, Hungarian poet Hannah Senesh made the ultimate sacrifice – having already escaped Nazi-occupied Europe for Palestine and freedom, she returned, parachuting in behind enemy lines in a valiant effort to save Hungary’s Jews from deportation to Auschwitz and certain death. Captured immediately upon crossing the border into Hungary, Hannah was tortured and taken to a prison in Budapest, yet she refused to reveal the coordinates of her fellow resistance fighters - even when they also arrested her mother, Catherine. Hannah became a symbol of courage for her fellow prisoners, encouraging them to remain in good spirits, never losing faith in her Jewish identity, even as she was led out to be executed by firing squad.

Narrated by Academy Award® Nominee Joan Allen, BLESSED IS THE MATCH is a truly moving memorial that brings to life this Holocaust heroine through interviews with Holocaust historians, eyewitness accounts from those on the rescue operation as well as in the prison, rare family photographs and the writings of Hannah and her mother. The film recreates Hannah’s perilous and heartbreaking mission, reconstructs her defiant months in the Gestapo prison and – through Hannah’s diary entries and poetry – looks back on the life of a talented and complex girl who came of age in a world descending into madness.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/blessed-is-the-match-the-life-and-death-of-hannah-senesh/cbi_blessed.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 414
    [title] => Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/whos-afraid-of-kathy-acker
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/whos-afraid-of-kathy-acker/320x-ackertypewriter_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => A multi-layered work featuring animation, archival footage and interviews with the likes of William Burroughs, Carolee Schneemann and Richard Hell, Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker by Austrian artist Barbara Caspar and co-produced by Annette Pisacane (Nico Icon) and Markus Fischer, is a thoughtful and creative film biography/essay on the late outlaw writer and punk icon, whose formally inventive novels, published from the ’70s through the mid-’90s, challenged assumptions about gender roles, sexuality, and the literary canon. 

A beguiling and intensely contradictory figure, Acker is best known for books which creatively appropriated texts from Great White Male writers, retelling them in an emotionally raw, sexually blunt, and politically questioning female voice. With her conceptual art videos in the ’70s, her close-cropped dyed blond hair, her tattoos, and her piercings, Acker was a performance artist, proto riot grrl, and living link to the transgressive authors of the ’50s and ’60s US and French experimental fiction scenes. Caspar has made a film that captures the essence of both Acker the writer and Acker the person while celebrating the avant-garde legacy of an artist who forever expanded the limits of self-expression. — Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/whos-afraid-of-kathy-acker/ackertypewriter_hires.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 431
    [title] => Middle of Everywhere
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/middle-of-everywhere
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/middle-of-everywhere/320x-MOE_HiRes1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => South Dakota is America’s heartland—waving cornfields, hard-working farmers, family values and a population of 750,000, the majority of whom identify as conservative and anti-abortion. Native daughter Rebecca Lee returns home in 2006 on the brink of a historic state vote: House Bill 1215 could make South Dakota the first state to outlaw most abortions since Roe vs. Wade passed almost 30 years earlier. In The Middle of Everywhere, Lee discovers the debate to be complex, with both sides claiming compassion for women and the same desire to stop the need for abortion. 

When 1215 fails to pass, Lee sets out to uncover what would make a self-proclaimed pro-life state vote against the very measure that would end most legal abortions. South Dakotans appear conflicted in their beliefs: passing the Pharmacist Refusal Law, allowing pharmacists and doctors the right not to dispense birth control if doing so goes against their religious views, yet voting along pro-choice lines to keep abortion safe and legal. Was the vote a simple misunderstanding of what it means to be pro-choice? Was it a deeply-held resentment against government intrusion into people’s private lives? Whatever the final reason, The Middle of Everywhere reveals that the issue goes beyond the simple choices of being for or against abortion to the much deeper question of what values we hold dear as Americans and as humans beings.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/middle-of-everywhere/MOE_HiRes1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 407
    [title] => Rough Aunties
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/rough-aunties
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/rough-aunties/320x-RAUNT_Signature_hires1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Fearless, feisty and resolute, the “Rough Aunties” are a remarkable group of women unwavering in their stand to protect and care for the abused, neglected and forgotten children of Durban, South Africa. This documentary by internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto (SISTERS IN LAW, DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE) follows the outspoken, multiracial cadre of Thuli, Mildred, Sdudla, Eureka and Jackie, as they wage a daily battle against systemic apathy, corruption, and greed to help the most vulnerable and disenfranchised of their communities. 

Despite the harsh realities of violence, poverty, and racism in the women’s work at the Bobbi Bear child welfare organization and in the heartaches of their personal lives, the portraits that emerge on screen are filled with grace, wisdom, friendship, and a deeply stirring conviction. Neither politics, nor social or racial divisions stand a chance against the united force of the women. Once again Longinotto has managed to bring us an intimate portrait of change from Africa, this time from post-apartheid South Africa, a nation being transformed with hope and energy into a new democracy.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/rough-aunties/RAUNT_Signature_hires1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 415
    [title] => My Israel – Revisiting the Trilogy
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/my-israel-revisiting-the-trilogy
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/my-israel-revisiting-the-trilogy/320x-cbe_MI_hires.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Few filmmakers have probed issues of Israeli nationalism and Israeli-Palestinian relations more completely or intimately than Tel Aviv-born Yulie Cohen. In My Israel, Cohen revisits her acclaimed trilogy My Terrorist (2002), My Land Zion (2004), and My Brother (2007) with new footage, fresh perspective, and her trademark fearlessness.

For Cohen, Israel is the land of her ancestors, the land her parents fought for during the 1948 war and the land she herself served as an Air Force Officer during the Entebbe crisis. In 1978, working as an El Al stewardess, she survived a terrorist attack in London that killed a colleague and left her with shrapnel in her arm. 

Embarking on a difficult and emotional journey, she attempts to free the surviving terrorist who attacked her, to question the myths of the state that she grew up in, and to reconcile with her ultra-orthodox brother after 25 years of estrangement. My Israel is an account of remarkable courage and understanding set against the last turbulent decade of Israeli history, successfully combining Cohen’s 10-year oeuvre in an incisive and refreshing new way.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/my-israel-revisiting-the-trilogy/cbe_MI_hires.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 392
    [title] => Bloodlines
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/bloodlines
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/bloodlines/320x-cbi_bloodlines-1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Bettina Goering, grandniece of Hermann Goering, has long tried to bury the dark legacy of her family history. Painter Ruth Rich, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, cannot resolve her deep-rooted anger over the suffering of her parents and the loss of an older brother in the Holocaust. Bettina seeks out Ruth in an attempt to confront her enormous guilt and her fear that the capacity for evil is in her blood. When the women meet, their hidden guilt and rage clash in a series of intimate and extraordinary meetings.

Provocative and deeply moving, BLOODLINES by Cynthia Connop follows Ruth and Bettina as they face the past in their quest to heal the future. Their meetings are interspersed with individual interviews, powerful images from Ruth’s paintings and archival photos. This contemporary film brings to light, in a way never before seen, the unwritten cost of war and genocide on future generations of both victims and perpetrators. Given recent events in Darfur, Rwanda and Serbia, this film provides relevant and timely insight into the difficult process of reconciliation and forgiveness, and the long-term consequences of hatred.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/bloodlines/cbi_bloodlines-1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 419
    [title] => Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/patsy-mink-ahead-of-the-majority
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/patsy-mink-ahead-of-the-majority/320x-cbe_patsy_hires1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the United States Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the US presidency and was the driving force behind Title IX, the landmark legislation that transformed women’s opportunities in higher education and athletics.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/patsy-mink-ahead-of-the-majority/cbe_patsy_hires1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 413
    [title] => License to Thrive: Title IX at 35
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/license-to-thrive-title-ix-at-35
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/license-to-thrive-title-ix-at-35/320x-cbe_license.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

In June of 1972, Congress passed a piece of legislation called Title IX of the Education Amendments, to provide educational access and opportunity for women and young girls throughout the United States. Although most closely associated with sports, no other piece of legislation since the 19th Amendment has been more crucial to opening doors and creating leadership opportunities for women in all arenas including education, science, math, finance, entertainment, the arts, business, law, and politics. 

License to Thrive: Title IX at 35 is a smart and highly-entertaining exploration of the unique history of the Title IX legislation and its critical role over the past 35 years in creating female leaders. From the classroom to the boardroom to the courtroom to the green room to the locker room, women are making their mark via the impact of Title IX.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/license-to-thrive-title-ix-at-35/cbe_license.JPG
)

Array
(
    [id] => 403
    [title] => The Sari Soldiers
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/the-sari-soldiers
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/the-sari-soldiers/320x-cbe_sari.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties. 

When Devi, mother of a 15-year-old girl, witnesses her niece being tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, she speaks publicly about the atrocity. The army abducts her daughter in retaliation, and Devi embarks on a three-year struggle to uncover her daughter’s fate and see justice done. The Sari Soldiers follows her and five other brave women: Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist shaping the protests to reclaim democracy. The Sari Soldiers delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on opposing sides of the conflict and the democratic revolution reshaping their country’s future.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/the-sari-soldiers/cbe_sari.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 433
    [title] => After the Rape
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/after-the-rape
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/after-the-rape/320x-cbe_after.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => In 2002, Mukhtar Mai, a rural Pakistani woman from a remote part of the Punjab, was gang-raped by order of her tribal council as punishment for her younger brother’s alleged relationship with a woman from another clan. Instead of committing suicide or living in shame, Mukhtar spoke out, fighting for justice in the Pakistani courts—making world headlines. Further defying custom, she started two schools for girls in her village and a crisis center for abused women. Mukhtar, who had never learned to read but knew the Koran by heart, realized that only a change in mentality could break brutal, archaic traditions and social codes. Her story, included in the bestseller “Half the Sky” by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and the subject of Mukhtar’s own memoir, “In the Name of Honor”, has inspired women across the globe.

Revealing the progress and fruits of Mukhtar’s labor, this powerful documentary tracks the school’s profound impact on the girls and families of Meerwala and shows how the crisis center empowers women seeking its help. An important look inside Pakistan, where the impact of Islamic fundamentalism is revealed and how women are fighting its oppressive and violent impact.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/after-the-rape/cbe_after.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 409
    [title] => Salata Baladi (An Egyptian Salad)
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/salata-baladi-an-egyptian-salad
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/salata-baladi-an-egyptian-salad/320x-Salata_hires1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2008
    [text] => Award-winning Egyptian filmmaker Nadia Kamel’s heritage is a complex blend of religions and cultures. Her mother is a half-Jewish, half-Italian Christian who converted to Islam when she married Nadia’s half-Turkish, half-Ukrainian father. Prompted by the realization that her 10-year-old nephew Nabeel is growing up in an Egyptian society where talk of culture clashes is all too common, she urges her feminist, pacifist, activist mother, Mary Rosenthal, to share their diverse family history. 

But, as she and Mary weave their way through the family’s multiethnic fairytales, they bump unexpectedly into the silence around old prejudices concerning the estranged Egyptian-Jewish branch of their family living in Israel since 1948. Bravely inspired to further challenge the boundaries between cultures, religions, and nationalities that are used to divide people, Kamel embarks on an amazing personal journey with her mother and nephew to Israel and Italy, confronting with an open heart, fears and prejudices along the way.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/salata-baladi-an-egyptian-salad/Salata_hires1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 404
    [title] => We Want Roses Too (Vogliamo Anche Le Rose)
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/we-want-roses-too-vogliamo-anche-le-rose
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/we-want-roses-too-vogliamo-anche-le-rose/320x-roses_highres2.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => This stunning visual masterpiece is an exuberant testament to the resolve of women of the ’60s and ’70s sexual revolution and feminist movement in Italy. Acclaimed director Alina Marazzi takes viewers on a gorgeous storytelling journey through archival footage, advertisements, and colorful images juxtaposed with the true-life struggles and first person narrations of three diverse Italian women: Anita, who is struggling with an oppressive father and the strict rules of her Catholic faith; Teresa, who must resort to a heartbreaking illicit abortion; and Valentina, a militant feminist caught between love and her commitment to the movement. 

The feminist slogan “We want bread, but we want roses too,” was first chanted by thousands of striking female textile workers in Massachusetts in 1912. Marazzi’s vibrant film is a celebration of women who fought for a world where both the essentials of bread and the poetry of roses have a place. The artistic and educational, personal and political converge beautifully in this fascinating film that transcends time and culture to reveal many of the universal struggles and inspirations of women’s equality.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/we-want-roses-too-vogliamo-anche-le-rose/roses_highres2.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 396
    [title] => My Daughter the Terrorist
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/my-daughter-the-terrorist
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/my-daughter-the-terrorist/320x-cbe_My Dau_the Terror1.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => This fascinating documentary is an exceedingly rare, inside look at an organization that most of the world has blacklisted as a terrorist group. Made by the first foreign film crew to be given access to the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) of Sri Lanka, the film offers important insights into the recently re-ignited conflict in Sri Lanka.

Twenty-four-year-olds Dharsika and Puhalchudar have been living and fighting side-by-side for seven years as part of LTTE’s elite force, the Black Tigers. Their story is told through cinema verité footage, newsreel footage, and interviews with the women and Dharsika’s mother. The women describe heartbreaking traumas they both experienced at the hands of the Sri Lankan army, which led them to join the guerrilla forces. As they discuss their readiness to become suicide bombers and their abiding loyalty to the unnamed “Leader” – who they are sure would never harm civilians – grisly images of past LTTE suicide bombings provide somber counterpoints. Their curiously flat affects raise the possibility that they have been brainwashed. This even-handed documentary sheds light on the reasons that the Tamil Tigers continue their bloody struggle for independence while questioning their tactics.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/my-daughter-the-terrorist/cbe_My Dau_the Terror1.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 425
    [title] => Miss GULAG
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/miss-gulag
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/miss-gulag/320x-Miss_Gulag_4_HIREZ.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => MISS GULAG is a rare look at the lives of the first generation of women to come of age in post-Soviet Russia, where women’s unemployment and incarceration rates are very high. Shot inside a Siberian prison camp and the surrounding countryside, this absorbing documentary traces the individual paths of three young women now at different points in their lives: Tatiana, whose parole hearing and early release are captured on film; Natasha, living in freedom with her family in a remote village; and Yulia, not yet twenty and facing still more prison time. Like their individual circumstances, the shared experience of long jail sentences has made them vigilant about their own destinies. Incarceration and an environment of constant surveillance are harsh, but no less so than life outside. Yet all three women, their families, and loved ones are sustained by hope.  

Discovering an Internet item about an annual beauty pageant staged by women inmates of UF91-9, director Maria Yatskova (born in Moscow and living in the US since the age of five) was inspired to make MISS GULAG. The film’s compelling, moving stories of survival shed light on democracy’s darker side and offer a look at the issues facing women in post Soviet Russia.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/miss-gulag/Miss_Gulag_4_HIREZ.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 405
    [title] => In Sickness and In Health
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/in-sickness-and-in-health
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/in-sickness-and-in-health/320x-cbi_inhealth.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => A deeply affecting film by newcomer Pilar Prassas and edited by Peter Heacock, In Sickness and In Health cuts through abstract ideologies, politics, and legalities to the human heart of the same-sex marriage debate in this amazing story of love, hope, and courage.

In 2002, filmmaker Pilar Prassas began following seven couples in their effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the state of New Jersey. Two years into filming, however, plaintiff Marilyn Maneely, mother of five, was diagnosed with the incurable, terminal disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. On the day Marilyn passed away, her life partner of 14 years, Diane Marini, was not even allowed to sign her death certificate.

In traditional marriage vows, “‘til death do us part” is the phrase that follows “in sickness and in health,” but to many gay and lesbian Americans, saying these words and enjoying their subsequent rights is not an option. With a tender touch, Prassas delicately balances tragedy and triumph in this film about the civil rights issue of our time—the fight to marry, and care for, the ones we love, in sickness and in health.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/in-sickness-and-in-health/cbi_inhealth.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 390
    [title] => Girl Inside
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/girl-inside
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/girl-inside/320x-GIRLIN_hires1.Cylla von Tiedemann.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => Following 26-year-old Madison during a crucial three years of her gender transition, GIRL INSIDE offers a window into the emotional, intellectual and spiritual journey of self-discovery that is as important as – if not more than – the physical experience of taking hormones and undergoing surgery. Vivien, Madison’s glamorous 80-year-old grandmother, who has taken on the job of advising her on all things feminine, is also featured. While Vivien's attempts to school Madison in old-fashioned codes of fashion and behavior are often hilarious, the juxtaposition of two vastly different experiences of womanhood, from very different generations, cause viewers to contemplate about the nature of gender, femininity and sexuality.
 
Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, this heartwarming coming of age story is both an intimate portrait and a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be a woman. Recommended for courses in transgender and queer studies, gender studies, women’s studies and sociology.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/girl-inside/GIRLIN_hires1.Cylla von Tiedemann.jpg
)

Array
(
    [id] => 444
    [title] => Fighting the Silence
    [link] => stdClass Object
        (
            [url] => https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/fighting-the-silence
            [title] => more
        )

    [image_thumb] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/fighting-the-silence/320x-cbe_FightingSilence_hires5.png
    [created_at] => Array
        (
        )

    [year_released] => 2007
    [text] => The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s seven year war was the deadliest ever recorded in Africa. During that time, more than 80,000 women and girls were raped.  Only now that the country is formally at peace are the consequences of the brutality becoming truly visible. Rape is slowly seeping into everyday life.  

FIGHTING THE SILENCE tells the story of ordinary Congolese women and men that are struggling to change their society: one that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists. Rape survivors and their families speak out openly about the suffering they endured because their culture considers women second class citizens and rape a taboo. They give voice to thousands of other survivors and their families who have chosen to hide their grief and remain silent for fear of being rejected by their families and community. 

Girls and women survivors tell of the brutality they experienced. Married couples openly talk about the pain they endure. Husbands talk of the pressures that led them to abandon their wives and why they agreed to take them back. A father explains why he has given up on his daughter’s future and how he wishes he could afford to take her rapist to court. Soldiers and policemen share their (shocking) views about why rape continues to flourish despite the war having officially ended four years ago.
    [image] => https://www.wmm.com/storage/films/fighting-the-silence/cbe_FightingSilence_hires5.jpg
)