Artist on Fire
A pioneer of feminist avant-garde cinema, Joyce Wieland has explored the crux of nationalism, feminine sexuality and ecology for more than thirty years in films such as her influential RAT LIFE AND DIET AND REASON OVER PASSION. This richly suggestive portrait surveys Wieland's involvement in structural filmmaking with Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton in the 1960s and her reinvention of women's crafts in her artwork.
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Invocation
Maya Deren is a legend of avant-garde cinema. This authoritative biography of the charismatic filmmaker, poet and anthropologist features excerpts from her pioneering Meshes of the Afternoon and her unfinished documentary on Haiti, interviews with Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas, and recordings of her lectures. Narrated by actress Helen Mirren, this definitive documentary offers startling insights into one of the most intriguing, accomplished figures in cinema history.
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Ana Mendieta
This beautiful film is a portrait of the life and work of Cuban-born American artist Ana Mendieta. Mendieta used her own body, the raw materials of nature, and Afro-Cuban religion to express her feminist political consciousness and poetic vision. Interview footage with Mendieta and her own filmed records of her earthworks and performances are incorporated to render a vivid testament to her energy and extraordinary talent after her tragic, untimely death in 1985. Spanish language version available.
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Miss Universe in Peru
Shot during the Miss Universe contest hosted by Peru in 1982, this documentary juxtaposes the glamour of the pageant with the realities of Peruvian women’s lives, while providing a critique of multinational corporate interest in the universal commodification of women. Grupo Chaski is a collective engaged in video production in Peru and is deeply committed to women’s equality and participation in society.
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Ten Cents a Dance (Parallax)
Onodera's three-part reflection on contemporary sexuality and communication uses a split screen device with a new twist. In the first segment, two women awkwardly discuss their mutual attraction; the second depicts anonymous bathroom sex between two men; the third is an ironic episode of heterosexual phone sex.
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A Girl's Own Story
This film is only available as part of the series "The Films of Jane Campion." View series.
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A Word in Edgewise
"A truly articulate, unaffected statement about a basic human activity, this excellent film explains the role of language in shaping behavior. It is a good synthesis of all that has been explored by linguists about sex bias in everyday speech and writing. Scholarly, yet simple and believable, it is informative without being preachy, and cites illustrations of abuses as well as suggestions for improvement. This is a truly feminist film made by women. This film should be required viewing for all educators and can be used at all levels to improve awareness of our use and abuse of language in perpetuating sex bias in culture."-Choice
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The Passion of Remembrance
THE PASSION OF REMEMBRANCE (dir. Maureen Blackwood & Isaac Julien, 1986), the Sankofa collective's greatly influential first film and a landmark work in British avant-garde film and video, ambitiously explores themes of racism, homophobia, sexism, and generational tensions as embodied in the reality known by a Black British family over the years. Interweaves two narrative threads—one in which a man and a woman discourse on their own experiences living in the UK, another in which events from three decades in the lives of the Baptiste family are staged—Maureen Blackwood and Isaac Julien tease the accumulated fragments into a spellbinding, heterogeneous mosaic that powerfully evokes the multiplicity of Black experience and identity and critiques the British state’s treatment of its marginalized residents.
This 4K remaster by the BFI National Archive, undertaken in collaboration with the directors and cinematographer Nina Kellgren, is based on the original 16mm negative and magnetic soundtrack final mix. Available for exhibition. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Black Women of Brazil
Despite official jargon to the contrary, Brazilians live in a racially segregated class system. This upbeat, sensitive and elegantly composed documentary, produced by Lilith Video Collective, looks at the ways Black women have coped with racism while validating their lives through their own music and religion.
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Emergence
Common themes of identity, alienation and herstory in the context of the diasporan experience emerge in this powerful film. Four Black and Third World women artists, among them African American feminist poet Audre Lorde and Palestinian performance artist Mona Hatoum, speak forcefully through their art and writing.
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Rate It X
What do men really think of women? This provocative, highly acclaimed documentary provides an unflinching look at sexism in America. A series of disturbing though sometimes amusing portraits uncover obvious culprits such as advertising firms and porn shops as well as often overlooked pockets of sexist imagery which promote gender stereotyping and reinforce negative conceptions of women and sexuality. With great humor and compassion, the film reveals men's deeply imbedded attitudes, showing how sexism becomes rationalized through commerce, religion and social values. Hotly controversial upon its release, RATE IT X is a challenging, invaluable film that illuminates crucial issues of censorship, advertising, pornography and violence against women. Produced by Lynn Campbell, Claudette Charbonneau, Paula De Koenigsberg and Lucy Winer.
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Navajo Talking Picture
In NAVAJO TALKING PICTURE film student Arlene Bowman (Navajo) travels to the Reservation to document the traditional ways of her grandmother. The filmmaker persists in spite of her grandmother's forceful objections to this invasion of her privacy. Ultimately, what emerges is a thought-provoking work which abruptly calls into question issues of "insider/outsider" status in a portrait of an assimilated Navajo struggling to use a "white man's" medium to capture the remnants of her cultural past. Excellent for film studies as well as those interested in Native American culture.
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Prescription for Change
Nurses: traditionally female, underpaid, and underappreciated. PRESCRIPTION FOR CHANGE presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at nursing.
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Gluttony
Eve discovers the rapture of the apple and offers it to Adam thus committing the original sin. Told in studio-bound cartoon style, this tale serves as an allegory for the plight of the contemporary male/female relationship.
Part of the SEVEN WOMEN-SEVEN SINS series which answers the question, " What constitutes a deadly sin in this day and age, and how do you approach such a subject?" Seven of the world’s best-known women directors produce their own version of celluloid sin in this omnibus film.
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Unfinished Diary
In this moving docudrama, Chilean emigre Mallet struggles to make a film about her experience of profound isolation. Her English speaking husband, a prominent filmmaker, criticizes her subjective approach to filmmaking; their young son, raised in Quebec, speaks only French. Interviews with Isabel Allende and other Chilean exiles reveal a deep bond in this powerful, resonant film about language and gender, exile and immigration.
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Stephanie
Following the filmmaker's teenage neighbor through six pivotal years of her life, Stephanie documents her dreams and disappointments through adolescence. Bright and inquisitive, Stephanie becomes disaffected with high school and the narrow options available to her and ultimately fails to graduate. This award-winning film profiles a typical teenager while pointing to broader issues of socialization, sex-role stereotyping and self esteem for young women.
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Update Brazil
Brazil, like most countries, has a high incidence of domestic violence and sexual assault. Too often, institutions set up to deal with these crimes are staffed by men who have little understanding or recognition of the needs of the women who are most often the victims. UPDATE BRAZIL looks at this country’s innovative solution: the establishment of police stations completely run and operated by plainclothes and armed women, offering legal assistance and emotional support. An informative, exciting, and empowering new perspective in dealing with sexual assault.
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An Island Surrounded by Water
A beautiful and poetic account of a young girl's search for her mother, who left mysteriously to join a guerilla movement. The narrative combines her real and imagined journey through the landscape of Mexico with her passage into adulthood. This, Novaro's first film, won the best fictional short award from Mexico's Academy of Film Arts and Sciences.
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The Maids
Domestic service has long been branded as demeaning work: it involves long hours, menial toil and low pay. Historically, and not coincidentally, it has been one of the only occupations open to African American women in this country. As African American women have begun to move away from domestic labor into other jobs, white-owned entrepreneurial maid services employing primarily white women have arisen. This intriguing and articulate documentary looks at the history of domestic work since slavery and the ambivalence felt by African American women towards it. Offering a sophisticated analysis of the racial and sexual division of labor in this country, THE MAIDS! is an excellent resource for women's, African American and labor studies.
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A Song of Ceylon
A formally rigorous, visually stunning study of colonialism, gender and the body. The title echoes the classic British documentary and evokes a country erased from the world map. The soundtrack enacts a Sri Lankan anthropological text observing a woman’s ritual exorcism. Visually, the film brings together theatrical conventions and recreations of classic film stills, presenting the body in striking tableaux. This remarkable film is a provocative treatise on hybridity, hysteria and performance.
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