1970s RELEASES

The first film ever made about the struggle for abortion rights in the U.S., this powerful archival piece documents women’s voices from a pre-Roe v. Wade era.

DIARY OF AN AFRICAN NUN (dir. Julie Dash, 1977), adapted from a short story by Alice Walker, follows a nun in Uganda consumed by doubt as she prepares to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Her anguish intensifies night after night as she lies in her convent room and listens to the rhythmic, beckoning drums of her village. This short, which precedes and anticipates her acclaimed feature DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, was a deliberate first move by director Julie Dash toward narrative filmmaking. Restored by Indie Collect in collaboration with the UCLA Film Archive and Women Make Movies. Available for exhibition. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

In FOUR WOMEN (dir. Julie Dash, 1975), one of the first experimental films by a Black woman filmmaker, dancer Linda Martina Young interprets the same-titled ballad by Nina Simone and embodies the spirits of four women — Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing and Peaches — who represent common stereotypes of Black women attempting to survive in America. Just as Nina Simone sings as each of the four women, Linda Martina Young costumes herself as each woman and shifts her style of movement to embody each one. And Dash changes the editing style slightly, at times pausing the film, halting the fluidity of motion, before cross-dissolving it into the next shot. Restored by Indie Collect in collaboration with the UCLA Film Archive and Women Make Movies. Available for exhibition. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Now digitally remastered! Sally Potter’s cult classic rewrites Puccini’s La Boheme to ask why the woman always has to die.

In her final piece at film school, Longinotto and her partner take us into the "Theatre Girls Club" in Soho, London–a hostel for elderly and destitute women and the only shelter in London that would take in any woman at any time. The filmmakers lived in the hostel for more than two months, establishing an extraordinary level of trust with their “cast” —from the home’s feisty cook to an elderly resident who was a terminal alcoholic. In what will later be recognized as a signature style, Longinotto films without judgement and finds the humor and humanity in situations and characters that might otherwise be seen as tragic. This stunning film debut earned awards at several European festivals and screened to acclaim in the US and Asia.

A rarely seen classic, PRIDE OF PLACE was made as a first project while Longinotto was a student at England’s National School of Television and Film. As a teenager, the filmmaker had been condemned to a girls' boarding school in an old, isolated castle in Buckinghamshire. Wisely, she ran away at the age of 17, and years later took the opportunity for sweet revenge. In this dark and expressive film, Longinotto exposes the repressive school from the students’ perspective—as a kind of miniature state with bizarre rules, indigestible food and absurd punishments. One year after the release of the film, the boarding school was closed down. With PRIDE OF PLACE, Longinotto sets the tone for a long career of films in which individuals revolt against oppressive authorities and stifling traditions.

A three volume set of film portraits--Muriel Rukeyser, Alice Neel and Anna Sokolow. The poetry, painting, and dance of these three women is not artistic purism, but the product of a life conducted within social fabric. Through interviews, photographs and her own poetry readings, Muriel Rukeyser is shown as a civil rights and political activist. "This film shows beautifully how Rukeyser's courageous and independent life and her fierce and compassionate lyricism are forged to make the long poem that is her life." --Galen Williams, Executive Director, Poets and Writers. Portrait painter Alice Neel has created a psychological and spiritual history of the modern era, as it has been registered in the human face. "A dazzling portrait of an exuberant and vivacious painter." --Dr. Joyce Rosa, Professor of Art History, Long Island University. Anna Sokolow's choreography and dance draws on her early life experience with poverty and oppression. "Modern dance was originally an expression of social concern. This film illuminates both a period that needs to be recalled and a leading choreographer who grew out of that period." --Anna Kisselgoff, dance critic, New York Times.

Part of the mediamaking movement that first gave centrality to the voices and experiences of African American women during the late Seventies and early Eighties, these two re-releases are no less groundbreaking today. KILLING TIME, an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities of life that keep us going. In FANNIE'S FILM, a 65-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers' exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes of women of color who earn their living as domestic workers, this seemingly simple documentary achieves a quiet revolution: the expressive portrait of a fully realized individual.

Laura Mulvey, author of the seminal essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema , helped to establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study. With Peter Wollen, she directed one of the most visually stimulating, theoretically rigorous films to emerge from the 1970s. RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX is a landmark fusion of feminism and formal experimentation that seeks to create a non-sexist film language. Its title figure, the legendary creature of antiquity, terrorized Thebes and self-destructed only after Oedipus correctly answered her riddle. Invoking and challenging traditional interpretations of the Oedipus story as a movement from matriarchal culture to patriarchal order, the film also probes representation in film itself. The central narrative section, about Louise, a middle-class woman, and her four-year-old daughter Ana, is an inquiry into the arbitrary nature of conventional film techniques that captures Louise's struggles with motherhood in a patriarchal society.

Not recommended for exhibition. This is the only existent digital copy from the original film, which was produced by the late filmmaker. If you have questions about the quality, please email [email protected].

This groundbreaking film on lesbian mothering portrays the diversity of experience, race and class among eight lesbian mothers and their children.

A fight between an African American and a white schoolgirl in Boston is explored in all its complexity in this fact-based drama from one of the producers of EYES ON THE PRIZE.

HEALTHCARING: FROM OUR END OF THE SPECULUM, produced by Women Make Movies, is a pioneering, bold, and sensitive documentary — one of the first to honestly chronicle women’s relationship to gynecology and healthcare. Made more than four decades before #MeToo, the film was ahead of its time in taking on issues of abuse by male doctors and portraying women taking control of their own vaginal exams. Women of all ages and backgrounds speak candidly of their experiences with the healthcare system, and the film documents the growing number of women who are questioning long standing medical practices and working to implement alternative and more effective health care. The positive, warm style of the film encourages women to share their own experiences and gain a better sense of their right to receive better healthcare. New 4K restoration funded by the HFPA Trust and IndieCollect donors to our Jane Fonda Fund for Women Directors. Available for exhibition. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

This dramatic story follows a young Nicaraguan immigrant, Irene, as she faces the challenges of life in the U.S. and re-evaluates her relationships with her boyfriend and family. AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE explores the immigrant experience, particularly the cultural, political and economic differences between life in North and Latin America. Written with Nina Serrano, Lourdes Portillo was nominated for an Academy Award for her next film, LAS MADRES DE LA PLAZA DE MAYO, produced with Susana Munoz.

"Daughter Rite is a classic, the missing link between the 'direct Cinema' documentaries and the later hybrids that acknowledged truth couldn't always be found in front of a camera lens. Scandalous in its day for bending the rules of representation to enlighten its audience about filmmaking, DAUGHTER RITE has a lot to teach folks hooked on reality TV, too. Citron's documentary inquiries into feminism, women in the trades, and feminist approaches to media representation are time capsules that merit re-opening." -B. Ruby Rich, author of " Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement" Includes special bonus feature, WHAT YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED, also by Michelle Citron.

Breaking free of conventional unities of body, space and time, this early feature by one of Europe's leading feminist filmmakers is a haunting excursion into psychic disintegration and crumbling identity. It loosely covers one year in the life of Anna, a young Viennese photographer increasingly convinced that the Hyksos, a hostile alien force, are invading people's bodies and responsible for the decay and rising violence around her. Valie Export skillfully exploits montage and integrates video, performance and installation art with elements from Cubism, Surrealism, Dada and avant-garde cinema.

A journey into the fascinating world of the Voudoun religion edited from footage shot by Deren in Haiti.

WOMANHOUSE is an historic documentary about one of the most important feminist cultural events of the 1970s. Judy Chicago (best-known as the creator of THE DINNER PARTY) and Miriam Shapiro rented an old Hollywood mansion and altered its interior through decor and set-pieces to "search out and reveal the female experience...the dreams and fantasies of women as they sewed, cooked, washed and ironed away their lives." WOMANHOUSE is a fascinating historical look at feminism, its reception in the 1970s, and the ever-important relationship between art and social change.

This short dramatic film brings to life the classic Charlotte Perkins Gilman story of the same name, which has become an important addition to American literature course curricula. Set in the late 1800s, the story features Elizabeth, an aspiring writer who becomes ill and is forced by her doctor and her husband to take a "rest cure." Completely isolated, her mind creates a world inside the wallpaper in her room-a world in which a woman is trapped and unable to escape.

YOUR CHILDREN COME BACK TO YOU is a contemporary allegory about values and assimilation. The film literalizes the meaning of a "mother country" by means of the story of a young girl, Tovi, torn between two surrogate mothers: one comfortably bourgeois, the other nationalist.

Composed of a series of vignettes featuring Native women from different first nations, this classic work by Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki, reflects a proud matriarchal culture that for centuries has been pressured to adopt the values and traditions of white society. By tracing the cycle of Native women's lives from birth to childhood, puberty, young adulthood, maturity and old age, the film shows how Native women have struggled to regain a sense of equality, instilled cultural pride in their children and passed on their stories and language to younger generations. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

CHICANA traces the history of Chicana and Mexican women from pre-Columbian times to the present. It covers women's role in Aztec society, their participation in the 1810 struggle for Mexican independence, their involvement in the US labor strikes in 1872, their contributions to the 1910 Mexican revolution and their leadership in contemporary civil rights causes. Using murals, engravings and historical footage, CHICANA shows how women, despite their poverty, have become an active and vocal part of the political and work life in both Mexico and the United States.