The Gold Diggers
Now digitally remastered! Sally Potter’s ground-breaking first feature examining the relationship between women and capitalism.
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Surviva
A refreshing weave of documentary, animation and nature montage examining the woman artist's relationship to work and community. An Artemisia and Women Make Movies co-production.
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Sari Red
Made in memory of Kalbinder Kaur Hayre, a young Indian woman killed in 1985 in a racist attack in England, SARI RED eloquently examines the effect of the ever-present threat of violence upon the lives of Asian women in both private and public spheres. In this moving visual poem, the title refers to red, the color of blood spilt and the red of the sari, symbolizing sensuality and intimacy between Asian women.
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Memory Pictures
A beautifully composed profile of gay Indian photographer, Sunil Gupta, and the way his work portrays issues of sexual and racial identity in relation to personal and familial history.
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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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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 Jury of Her Peers
On a desolate American farm in the early 1900's, a farmer is found murdered in his sleep and his wife is jailed as the prime suspect. A powerful adaptation of the 1917 Susan Glaspell short story of the same name, based on her play "Trifles", A JURY OF HER PEERS presents a riveting tale of revenge, justice and women’s shared experience. Equally relevant in women’s studies courses and for use with organizations battling violence against women, this riveting feminist classic probes the notion of women’s victimization and justifiable homicide and opens the possibility for the creation of an alternate, feminist justice and judgment.
Two women, a neighbor and the sheriff’s wife, find themselves in the accused woman’s kitchen while the prosecuting attorney and their husbands search the farm for motive for the crime. As the camera lingers on small details in the kitchen – spilled sugar, a broken chair, crooked stitches in a quilt piece – the motive becomes clear as the suspect’s isolated life of physical and emotional abuse is revealed. As each new clue further incriminates the accused, the women must decide whether to reveal the evidence against her and become, in effect, a jury of her peers.
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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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Greetings from Washington DC
GREETINGS FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. (dir. Rob Epstein, Frances Reid, Great Schiller, and Lucy Winer) documents the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which took place on October 14, 1979. LGBTQ+ history was made when tens of thousands of people converged on America’s capital, and this empowering documentary captures the joyous, intersectional spirit of an event that heralded the beginning of a new chapter in the national fight for queer rights and visibility. This film also made history with its world premiere in 1981 when it became the Frameline Film Festival’s first ever Castro Theatre screening.
Digitally restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project. Laboratory services provided by Metropolis Post, Audio Mechanics. Available for exhibition. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Seventeen Rooms
Britain’s Channel 4 refused to broadcast this piece because of its subtitle: WHAT DO LESBIANS DO IN BED? The film looks into seventeen bedrooms to challenge the titillating promise of that question with home movie footage and texts such as “Sleep," “Read," and even “Sometimes Kiss." A light and humorous examination of visual representations of women, sexual terminology and the definition of deviance.
Digital preservation copy now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Remembering Thelma
Guggenheim Award-winning filmmaker Kathe Sandler provides viewers with a lively profile of dance instructor and performer Thelma Hill. The film contains rare footage of original Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and the New York Negro Ballet of the 1950s.
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From Bedside to Bargaining Table
This inspiring documentary looks at nursing from the nurse's point of view, encouraging healthcare professionals to work together to change their poor working conditions and gain self-respect.
With gratitude to the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU, a digital preservation copy of this film now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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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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Snakes and Ladders
Like our own children’s game, Chutes and Ladders, the story of women’s education has always been one step forward, two steps back. In this creative documentary, a fictional woman detective acts as our guide to the history of women’s education in Australia, one surprisingly like our own. Featuring interviews with ten women (including Anne Summers, the editor of MS. Magazine) aged sixteen to ninety-four, SNAKES AND LADDERS combines personal memories with historical detail, analyses and clever animated sequences to begin to fill in a missing story of women’s determination and vision. A significant addition to curricula in Women’s Studies, History and Education.
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Louder Than Our Words
A look at civil disobedience and women's rights in the U.S. from the suffragettes through the anti-war and disarmament movements.
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Pregnant with Dreams
Engaging, intimate and fast-moving, this film reflects the diversity and richness of Latin American feminism by documenting the 4th Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe which brought together more than 1,200 Latin American women for a week in Mexico in 1987.
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Home Avenue
With commanding cinematic style, Montgomery retraces events of a night nine years ago when, between her boyfriend's dorm and her parent's house, she was raped at gunpoint. Super 8 camera in tow, she uncovers the psychology of the incident, relating how the authorities and her family tried to disavow her claims and the crime. Pondering the bland suburban landscape, her subsequent obsession with guns and the blurring of guilt, responsibility and betrayal, Montgomery boldly masters the trauma through memory, self-narration and artistic intervention. By the maker of ART FOR TEACHERS OF CHILDREN.
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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 London Story
This lively, accessible spy spoof revolves around the unlikely alliance of three eccentric characters and their mission to uncover government foreign policy duplicity. Beautifully and humorously choreographed against London's most famed locales. In technicolor! Produced in association with the British Film Institute and Channel Four Television.
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Far From Poland
When denied visas to shoot in Poland, a filmmaker, steeped in the documentary traditions of the left, decides to construct her film in New York City. Over the barest bones of documentary footage she drapes dramatic reenactments of Solidarity texts, formal vignettes and swatches of soap opera to engage the audience in her personal definition of the Polish struggle. A deft dismemberment of documentary truth, from the director of WAITING FOR THE MOON. Made in collaboration with Susan Delson, Mark Magill and Andrzej Tymowski.
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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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After Hours
A confronting and realistic short drama by Academy Award-winning director, Jane Campion, about sexual harassment in the office. A young office worker alleges her boss sexually harassed her when she worked late at his request. She loses her job as a result of the claim. The investigator for the case finds it difficult to gather evidence from the tight-lipped and uncooperative office workers. Delicately drawn, AFTER HOURS raises important questions about discrimination, sexual harassment, gender relations and the interpretation of events.
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Peggy and Fred in Kansas
A few years older now, our boy and girl heroes mumble and chant their way through mid- America's wasteland. Thornton's interest in the line between language and thought becomes disturbingly apparent.
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Peggy and Fred in Hell
The first installment of Leslie Thornton's ongoing epic follows two children, Peggy and Fred, through a densely cluttered, technological-consumer jumble of late 20th century icons.
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There Was An Unseen Cloud, Moving
A deft and intentionally fragmented "biography" of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Victorian traveler who, dressed as an Arab man, became a Muslim and a writer in Algeria at the turn of the century.
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Adynata
A formal 1861 portrait of a Chinese Mandarin and his wife is the starting point for this allegorical investigation of the fantasies spawned in the West about the East, particularly that which associates femininity with the mysterious Orient. ADYNATA presents a series of oppositions-male and female images, past and present sounds-which in and of themselves construct a minimal and fragmentary narrative, an open text of our imaginations, fears and fantasies.
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Seven Women-Seven Sins
What constitutes a deadly sin today? Seven of the world’s best-known women directors produce their own version of celluloid sin in this omnibus film. Helke Sander (THE GERMANS AND THEIR MEN) reverses GLUTTONY with her vision of Eve forcing her apples into the hands of a reluctant Adam. Bette Gordon (VARIETY, EMPTY SUITCASES) finds GREED during a fight in the ladies’ room of a luxury hotel over a lottery ticket. Strangers reply to director Maxi Cohen’s ad in a newspaper to share their litanies in ANGER. Award-winning director, Chantal Akerman, battles to overcome her SLOTH in order to complete her film, while Valie Export (INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES) strips bare notions of the skin trade in LUST. ENVY turns into murder in Laurence Gavron’s take on vice, and Ulrike Ottinger, whose work includes JOHANNA D'ARC OF MONGOLIA, illustrates PRIDE with a fantastical collage of allegory and images. SEVEN WOMEN - SEVEN SINS is the perfect introduction for those new to the world of women’s filmmaking and an interesting study in styles for those already familiar with the work of these seven innovative directors.
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The Practice of Love
"Valie Export's third feature is an anti-romance in which the heroine, oscillating between two relationships, gradually discovers that both are impossible, not because the subjective processes of "love" are defective, but because the objective, social matrix in which both her male lovers operate is corrupt, immoral, murderous: in this film, the male world and its power structures cancel the possibility of love beyond the matter of sexuality, that is the objectification of love. Export makes use of techniques drawn from her earlier experimental cinema, video and conceptual photography to expand the possibilities of narrative feature filmmaking and to disintegrate some of its overdetermined conventions." -Gary Indiana
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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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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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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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Mitsuye and Nellie
This absorbing documentary examines the lives of Asian Americans through the inspirational poetry of Mitsuye Yamada and Nellie Wong. Interviews, rare archival footage, intimate family scenes and a lively dialogue between these fascinating women underscore the different histories of Chinese and Japanese Americans but also shared experiences of biculturalism and generational difference. Ideal for literature and poetry classes, women's studies and Asian American groups.
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Master Smart Woman
From the award-winning director of THE WHITE HERON and THE TWO WORLDS OF ANGELITA, this loving portrait is a much deserved re-evaluation of Sarah Orne Jewett's contribution to American literature. Recently rediscovered by feminist literary scholars, Jewett was a fiercely independent woman, a critically acclaimed 19th century author, and an important role model for a generation of women writers.
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Visions of the Spirit
This intimate and inspiring portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker explores the compassion, insight and strength that have made her one of the most admired women in the United States. Filmed at Walker’s California home, in her Georgia hometown, and on location with the film crew of THE COLOR PURPLE, VISIONS OF THE SPIRIT shows us Walker as mother, daughter, philosopher, activist and of course, writer. Featherston’s film explores the roots of Walker’s southern African American feminist consciousness through in-depth conversations with the writer and members of her family. African American feminist literary scholar Barbara Christian places Walker in the history of African American literature, archival footage of the civil rights movement provides background for Walker’s political vision. A perfect introduction to the writer for literature, African American and women’s studies classes, libraries and general audiences.
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Gotta Make This Journey
This vibrant and engaging film profiles the a capella activist group, Sweet Honey in the Rock. Singing to end the oppression of Black people world wide, SWEET HONEY embraces musical styles from spirituals and blues to calypso, and concerns ranging from feminism to ecology, peace and justice. This dynamic film features individual portraits, powerful concert footage and commentary by Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Holly Near.
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...But Then, She's Betty Carter
This lively film is an unforgettable portrait of legendary vocalist Betty Carter, one of the greatest living exponents of jazz. Uncompromised by commercialism throughout her long career, she has forged alternative criteria for success — including founding her own recording company and raising her two sons as a single parent. Parkerson's special film captures Carter's musical genius, her paradoxical relationship with the public and her fierce dedication to personal and artistic independence.
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Illusions
This critically acclaimed drama from filmmaker Julie Dash (DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST) takes place in 1942 at a fictitious Hollywood motion picture studio.
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A Different Image
A highly-acclaimed film, A DIFFERENT IMAGE is an extraordinary poetic portrait of a beautiful young African American woman attempting to escape becoming a sex object and to discover her true heritage. Through a sensitive and humorous story about her relationship with a man, the film makes provocative connections between racism and sexual stereotyping. The screenplay of A DIFFERENT IMAGE is published in Screenplays of the African American Experience, edited by Dr. Phyllis R. Klotman.
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Cycles
Rasheeda Allen is waiting for her period, a state of anticipation familiar to all women. Drawing on Caribbean folklore, this exuberant experimental drama uses animation and live action to discover a film language unique to African American women. The multilayered soundtrack combines a chorus of women's voices with the music of Africa and the diaspora-including Miriam Makeba, acappella singers from Haiti and trumpetiste Clora Bryant.
The 1991, 4-minute short film A PERIOD PIECE is also available for purchase. Please contact [email protected] for ordering information.
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Picking Tribes
“In a heartfelt, and often hilarious, attempt to be more than ‘ordinary,’ a girl growing up in the 1940s tries to choose between her African-American and Native-American heritages. It is only when her beloved grandfather dies that she is able to reconcile the power of both her heritages and realizes her own uniqueness." -Moving Pictures Bulletin
Sharp uses vintage photographs and Carlos Spivey’s watercolor animation to create a spirited portrait of a girl’s search for identity.
Now with Bonus Short Film: BACK INSIDE HERSELF 2009 Remix by S. Pearl Sharp (4min 45secs)
Originally released in 1984, this lyrical visual poem featuring Barbara-O urges black women to both discover and invent their own identities. The 2009 remix includes updated audio with vocals by Sharp and Dwight Trible.
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...And Woman Wove It in a Basket
For the Klickitat Indians in Washington, basket weaving is a way of reclaiming native forms and heritage. This evocative portrayal of basket weaver Nettie Jackson Kuneki and her family explores Klickitat river culture within an investigation of documentary practice and cultural preservation. Capturing native life as experienced by a contemporary Klickitat woman, the film presents her daily activities through seasonal changes, the documentation of her craft and a visual history of Indian tales and legends. Voices of the filmmakers' own quest supplement Kuneki's reflections, creating a unique tapestry of personal memory and cultural collaboration that is invaluable for ethnographic film studies, Native American collections and women's studies.
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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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Two Lies
Doris Chu, a recently divorced Chinese American woman, has plastic surgery to make her eyes rounder. From her teenage daughter Mei's perspective, her mother's two eyes equal two lies. When the family journeys to a desert resort during Doris' recuperation, a series of revelations and bitter confrontations erupt. This beautiful black and white drama is a poignant study of generational conflict and the struggle for identity in a world of hybrid cultures.
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The Displaced View
THE DISPLACED VIEW is a film that movingly depicts the odyssey of an American-born Japanese granddaughter in search of her identity through her grandmother who is the last of the family born in Japan. The sense of isolation the granddaughter feels as a Japanese woman who cannot speak Japanese is skillfully evoked in a montage of images gleaned from old photographs, movies, animated puppets, and various experimental film techniques. Onodera focuses almost exclusively on Japanese women as preservers of the old traditions in a country where they have no meaning. By revealing the inconsistency of memory and the cultural erosion of assimilation, the fragile identity of the Japanese in North America is eloquently expressed, and the sense of alienation and displacement heightens as the old voices try to remember the past. The narrative shifts between English and Japanese, as well as between generations. Japanese subtitles are artfully displayed throughout. The focus on women makes this film ideal for women’s studies, but the historical overview would be important in other disciplines such as history and sociology. Highly recommended for academic libraries. -Roxanna Herrick, SUNY at Stony Brook Library
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Can't You Take a Joke?
Can you fall in love and still have a sense of humor? This delightful, stylish comedy, in which boy meets boy and girl meets girl, uses the romantic music and visuals of Hollywood film noir to explore the ideal of love at first sight.
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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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Storme
“It ain’t easy…being green” is the favorite expression of Storme DeLarverie, a woman whose life flouted prescriptions of gender and race. During the 1950’s and 60’s she toured the black theater circuit as a mistress of ceremonies and the sole male impersonator of the legendary Jewel Box Revue, America’s first integrated female impersonation show and forerunner of La Cage aux Folles. The multiracial revue was a favorite act of the Black theater circuit and attracted mixed mainstream audiences from the 1940s through the 1960s, a time marked by the violence of segregation. Parkerson finds Storme in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, now working as a bodyguard at a women’s bar and still singing in her deep silky voice with an “all girl” band. Through archival clips from the past, STORME looks back on the grandeur of the Jewel Box Revue and its celebration of pure entertainment in the face of homophobia and segregation. Storme herself emerges as a remarkable woman, who came up during hard times but always “kept a touch of class.”
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She Even Chewed Tobacco
The Gold Rush. A new frontier. Nineteenth century California offered women the opportunity to pioneer new roles for themselves. Meet Babe Bean, the "trouser puzzle" who escaped the hot glare of tabloid headlines by disguising herself as Jack Garland and serving in the Spanish American War. Or Jeanne Bonnet who scored a record of 22+ arrests for wearing male attire, went to prison for her indiscretions and later organized a group of prostitutes into a shoplifting ring! "A fascinating eye-opening tribute to the stamina and chutzpah of some of yesterday's most notable pariahs!" —The Advocate
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Perfect Image?
Bright and imaginative in its approach to its subject, PERFECT IMAGE? exposes stereotypical images of Black women and explores women's own ideas of self worth. Using two actresses who constantly change their personae, the film poses questions about how Black women see themselves and each other and the pitfalls that await those who internalize the search for the "perfect image"!
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Trick or Drink
Vanalyne Green's childhood world, growing up with alcoholic parents, is recreated through crayon drawings, family albums, excerpts from her adolescent diary and her interpretation of subsequent events in her life-including her own bulimia and her relationships with men.
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A Man, When He Is a Man
Set in Costa Rica and touched with dark humor, this stylistically imaginative documentary illuminates the social climate and cultural traditions which nurture machismo and allow the domination of women to flourish in Latin America.
"An amazing work that successfully reveals the genuinely funny elements of male posturing and its potentially serious consequences. It will be appreciated by general audiences as well as teachers interested in stimulating discussion on sex roles." -Malcolm Arth, Margaret Mead Film Festival
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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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A Spy in the House that Ruth Built
Vanalyne Green appropriates the all-male arena of professional baseball to create a visual essay about family, loss, and sexuality. Confronted with such a strange wonderland, devoid of women, Green is compelled to reinterpret baseball's symbolism-its womb-like landscape, cycles, and rituals-to construct an iconography that pays homage to the female. With humor and irony, Green creates a film that is both a personal revelation and a heretical portrait of America's national past-time.
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The Germans and Their Men
"If a woman doesn't have equal rights, is she equally responsible for the crimes of a nation?" Helke Sander's quasi-documentary turns a wry and revealing lens on German masculinity and national identity. This powerful critique offers popular sentiments and startling insights with biting wit and clarity, making provocative connections between feminism, fascism and the legacy of sexism in German history. Produced for ZDF (German television). "Still the best female helmer on the scene in Germany, Helke Sander takes her time between productions to pour as much personal philosophical reflection into her films as possible." -Variety
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Trade Secrets
Perfect as a training film or as an historical look at labor issues in the 1980s, TRADE SECRETS has been purchased by hundreds of colleges, libraries, community and women's groups. “An ironworker, a sprinkler fitter, and an electrician; all women who describe their jobs and the physical and personal obstacles they overcame to get where they are. In the 1970’s, because of jobs with new equal employment laws, women began to enter the construction trades challenging the traditional male world. Regarded with hostility and suspicion, not all women completed their apprenticeships to be fully qualified as journey women. One who did, an ironworker, describes how tired she was each day as work ended because of her refusal to give up. An Asian woman who had been a secretary for ten years, speaks of suing for harassment when she lost a job after refusing to go out with her foreman. A female welder tells of getting burns until she developed skills and the eventual love of her job. Marrying a fellow welder from the shipyards, she relies on him to help out at home in raising their family. A sprinkler fitter describes the problems she had with men on the job until they saw that she could carry her own share of the work. A woman who teaches skills to women entering the trades explains that she teaches self-esteem and confidence building to women more than the skills themselves. The greater financial power of women in the trades, and their new sense of identity as journey women are discussed in this film about some of the changes taking place in the workplace today.” -Landers Film Review
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What You Take for Granted
The tentative friendship of Anna, a feisty truck driver, and Diana, an upper middle-class doctor, provides the core for an unusual, intimate and moving look at women's experiences in jobs traditionally held by men. Based on actual interviews of forty working women, the film intercuts the story of Anna and Diana with fictionalized interviews of four other non-traditionally employed women.
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Women of Steel
For women who entered the nation's steel mills in the 1970s, the mill was a ticket out of traditionally low-paying "women's jobs" and in some cases, out of poverty. But any gains for women were short lived. WOMEN OF STEEL looks at a turning point in the history of American industry and the disastrous effects widesweeping layoffs and plant closings had on women and families, affirmative action plans, and the union movement. An important historical documentary which has an eerie relevance to women's place in the American economy today.
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Bringing It All Back Home
This fascinating documentary analyzes how the patterns of international capital investment and the exploitation of Third World women workers in free trade zones are being brought home to the First World. Issues discussed include: the internationalization of local economies, the growing schism between the rich and poor and the changing nature of women's work.
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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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Some American Feminists
SOME AMERICAN FEMINISTS explores one of the most significant social histories of this century-the second wave of the women's movement-and is a fascinating flashback on the women's liberation agenda in the light of 1990s backlash. Inspirational interviews with Ti-Grace Atkinson, Rita Mae Brown, Betty Friedan, Margo Jefferson, Lila Karp and Kate Millett are intercut with newsreel footage of the tumultuous sixties and early seventies. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Some American Feminists is critical viewing for all those interested in women's studies, history and social studies.
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Waking Up to Rape
"If I were to choose only one film on sexual assault to show to a class or to the general public, I would select WAKING UP TO RAPE. This is a powerful film that examines the personal trauma of rape, its long-term psychological effects, societal attitudes about sexual assault, and the problem of racism in the criminal justice system. Three rape survivors (Black, Chicana, and white) courageously describe their rape experiences (acquaintance rape, incest, and stranger rape). The film also features scenes with women police officers, counselors, and self-defense instructors. Unlike most films, it offers strong support for women viewers who are coping with their own sexual assault experiences. I highly recommend it for college classes, everyone who works with sexual assault survivors, and the general public." -Feminist Collections
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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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Why Women Stay
This documentary examines the complex reasons why women remain in violent homes and challenges the prevailing attitudes which accept domestic violence as well as the social structures which perpetuate it. Among the issues examined are the attitudes of battered women, the lack of funding for shelters and the support battered women find in a shelter environment. Although produced more than ten years ago in a low budget format, this film still offers a complex analysis of an enduring social problem.
With gratitude to the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU, a digital preservation copy of this film now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Rule of Thumb
A sensitive film which explores domestic violence through the perspective of women who have left abusive relationships. Five women from different backgrounds discuss their ordeals and the concrete steps they have taken to eradicate fear and violence from their daily lives. Supplemented by testimonies from a woman judge, a police officer and a former abuser, this empowering film offers clear, concise instructions on obtaining an order of protection and other support services.
"*** This thorough and well constructed work succeeds in informing the public about both prevention and intervention in regard to domestic violence. This project addresses its important and disturbing topic so well that it should be shown on every television station and in every schoolroom across the country." - Jury Comments, American Film and Video Association
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Her Giveaway
Carole Lafavor (Ojibwe), activist, mother and registered nurse, is a person with AIDS. In this candid and moving portrait, Lafavor relates how she has come to terms with AIDS by combining her traditional beliefs and healing practices with western medicine. HER GIVEAWAY is more than just basic information—it is an inspiring example of how we can all learn from the Native American philosophy of illness. Produced by Smith (Dakota) for the Minnesota American Indian AIDS Task Force, this film confronts the “official” invisibility of women, Native Americans and lesbians with AIDS.
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With a Vengeance
This urgent and timely film is a history of the struggle for reproductive freedom since the 1960s, reflecting the wider history of the contemporary women's movement. WITH A VENGEANCE is an empowering look at the strength and breadth of the current women's movement which asks why current battles resemble those of the 60s. Rare archival footage and interviews with early abortion rights activists, including members of Redstockings and the JANE Collective, are intercut with young women who testify to the need for multi-racial grassroots coalitions. Flo Kennedy and Byllye Avery exemplify African American women's roles as leaders, making connections between racism, reproductive freedom and healthcare for the poor.
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I Need Your Full Cooperation/Underexposed
In these two compelling films, Kathy High explores the relationship between women’s bodies and the medical institution. Now a classic, I NEED YOUR FULL COOPERATION (1989, 28 mins) is a critical commentary on the patriarchal medical world and the past experimental techniques used to control female sexuality and reproductive capacities. Combining drama and documentary, UNDEREXPOSED: THE TEMPLE OF THE FETUS, (1992, 72 mins) is a savvy and creative documentary probe into the high-tech baby-making market and emerging reproductive technologies.
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Positive Images
People with disabilities constitute nearly twenty percent of the American population. Sexism and often racism compound discrimination based on disability. Designed to provide positive, realistic pictures of the lives of women with disabilities and the social, economic, and political issues they face, POSITIVE IMAGES focuses on three strong and articulate women. Offering crucial role models for women and girls with disabilities, this powerful film also locates disability as a women's issue of concern to us all by discussing education, employment and careers, sexuality, family life and parenting, and societal attitudes.
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Acting Our Age: A Film About Women Growing Old
An invigorating antidote for American culture's one-dimensional image of older women, this classic film offers empowering insights about women and aging for every generation. Personal portraits of six ordinary women in their 60's and 70's who share their lives. In candid interviews that tackle a range of thought-provoking topics, including self-image, sexuality, financial concerns, dying, and changing family relationships, members of the group display both a vibrant strength of spirit and inspiring zest for life.
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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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On Becoming a Woman
This extraordinary documentary provides rare insights into some important health issues for African American women. Although it was produced before AIDS was a major factor for women, ON BECOMING A WOMAN deals candidly and constructively with teen pregnancy, providing in-depth information about reproduction, birth control, self-examination and sexual activity. Filmed primarily during the National Black Women's Health Project workshop sessions, this historic film also demonstrates models for trust and communication between mothers and daughters.
With gratitude to the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU, a digital preservation copy of this film now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Color Schemes
An upbeat, ironic look at America’s multicultural society, COLOR SCHEMES uses the metaphor of “color wash” to tackle conceptions of racial assimilation. Challenging stereotypes, twelve writer/performers collaborate on four performance sequences—soak, wash, rinse and extract. Spinning through this tumble- jumble of America’s washload, the performers scheme to claim racial images that remain color vivid.
Digital preservation copy now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Juxta
This beautiful drama observes the psychological effects of racism on two children of Japanese women and American servicemen. Thirty-one year old Kate, the daughter of a Japanese/white mixed marriage visits her childhood friend, Ted, a Japanese-Black American. Together they confront the memory of her mother’s tragic story in this telling, emotionally nuanced journey into the complexity of US racism.
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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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Nice Colored Girls
This stylistically daring film audaciously explores the history of exploitation between white men and Aboriginal women, juxtaposing the “first encounter” between colonizers and native women with the attempts of modern urban Aboriginal women to reverse their fortunes. Through counterpoint of sound, image, and printed text, the film conveys the perspective of Aboriginal women while acknowledging that oppression and enforced silence still shape their consciousness.
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Coffee Colored Children
This lyrical, unsettling film conveys the experience of children of mixed racial heritage. Suffering the aggression of racial harassment, a young girl and her brother attempt to wash their skin white with scouring powder. Starkly emotional and visually compelling, this semi-autobiographical testimony to the profound internalized effects of racism and the struggle for self-definition and pride is a powerful catalyst for discussion.
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Dreaming Rivers
From Sankofa Film and Video comes this bittersweet and nostalgic short drama illustrating the spirit of modern families touched by the experience of migration. Miss T., from the Caribbean, lives alone in her one-room apartment, her children and husband having left her to pursue new dreams. When she dies her family and friends gather at her wake. The tapestry of words that interweave the drama convey the fragments of a life lived, but only partly remembered.
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From Here, From This Side
The relationship between Mexico and its rich neighbor to the north has always been ambiguous. Using mostly stock footage, this collage-like documentary “stars” Robert Redford, John Gavin and Superman in an exploration of the largest border separating the First and the Third World—that separating the United States of Mexico from the United States of America. Incorporating texts by Octavio Paz and others, images from Mexican melodramas and Hollywood movies, this film forces American viewers to consider the question of cultural imperialism from “the other side.”
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Myriam’s Gaze
An inspirational portrait of a woman living on the outskirts of Bogota. “Through Myriam’s eyes, we get a glimpse of her strength, dignity and tenderness. An important and powerful work.” —Beatriz Vieira, Neighborhood Film and Video Project
Digital preservation copy now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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A Kiss on the Mouth
From the Lilith Video Collective comes this sensitive and sympathetic examination of female prostitution in urban Brazil. Frank, intimate and politically astute, the women discuss experiences of racism, poverty, police harassment, and violence as well as their relationships with their families, children, lovers and clients.
With gratitude to the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU, a digital preservation copy of this film now 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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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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Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza De Mayo
This Academy award-nominated documentary about the Argentinian mothers’ movement to demand to know the fate of 30,000 “disappeared” sons and daughters remains as extraordinarily powerful as when it was first released. As well as giving an understanding of Argentinian history in the ‘70s and ‘80s, LAS MADRES shows the empowerment of women in a society where women are expected to be silent. LAS MADRES provides a banner of hope in the international struggle for human rights.
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How Nice to See You Alive
On March 31, 1964, a military coup overthrew the Brazilian government. Four years later, all civil rights were suspended and torture became a systematic practice. Using a mix of fiction and documentary this extraordinary film is a searing record of personal memory, political repression and the will to survive. Interviews with eight women who were political prisoners during the military dictatorship are framed by the fantasies and imaginings of an anonymous character, portrayed by actress Irene Ravache. Filmmaker Murat, like the interviewees, was herself tortured and imprisoned; her film shatters the silence imposed on the survivors and the collective will to forget.
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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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Eat the Kimono
EAT THE KIMONO is a brilliant documentary about Hanayagi Genshu, a Japanese feminist and avant-garde dancer and performer, who has spent her life defying her conservative culture’s contempt for independence and unconventionality. She denounced Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal, and dismissed death threats made against her by right-wing groups. “You mustn’t be eaten by the kimono,” says Genshu, making reference to the traditional Japanese dress designed to restrict movement for women, “You must eat the kimono, and gobble it up.” From the directors of THE GOOD WIFE OF TOKYO and HIDDEN FACES.
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Hell to Pay
A moving and politically sophisticated analysis of the international debt situation through the eyes of the women of Bolivia, the poorest country in Latin America. Although most directly affected by government austerity programs, peasant women are assumed not to understand the workings of international capital and foreign policy. HELL TO PAY poignantly contradicts such assumptions as teachers, textile workers and miners’ wives speak vividly and with great comprehension of the causes of the debt crisis and the burden they are forced to bear.
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Love, Women and Flowers
At any time of year in the U.S., carnations of every color are plentiful and cheap – but the ready availability of these beautiful flowers comes at a global price. Thousands of miles away from the bright displays in U.S. stores, hazardous labor conditions endanger the 90,000 women who work in Colombia’s flower industry.
According to a 2007 report, approximately 60 percent of all flowers sold in the U.S. come from Colombia, where the use of pesticides and fungicides – some banned in the developed countries that export them – has drastic health and environmental consequences. With urgency and intimacy, this film evokes the testimonies of the women workers and documents their efforts to organize. As women workers continue to struggle in this industry (in 2007 almost 200 workers were fired from the largest flower plantation in Colombia for their attempts to unionize and improve their conditions) this powerful and unique documentary remains an important resource for those interested in globalization, environmentalism, labor issues, social struggles, and Latin American 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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Surname Viet Given Name Nam
Vietnamese-born Trinh T. Minh-ha’s profoundly personal documentary explores the role of Vietnamese women historically and in contemporary society.
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Naked Spaces
Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo, Benin and Senegal). The nonlinear structure of NAKED SPACES challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent: the private interaction of people in their living spaces.
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Reassemblage
Women are the focus but not the object of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s influential first film, a complex visual study of the women of rural Senegal.
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Angola Is Our Country
Angolan women are rarely heard describing the impact of South Africa’s undeclared war against their country. This moving documentary, produced in conjunction with the Organization of Angolan Women (OMA), highlights the contribution women make to the reconstruction of a country where war has consumed more than half the national budget and produced at least a million internal refugees.
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A State of Danger
Shot in Israel and the Occupied Territories, this extraordinary documentary offers a unique, vital perspective on the Intifada seldom seen in U.S. mainstream media. Produced for the BBC, A State of Danger gives voice to Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, most of them women. Chilling testimonies to Israeli police brutality are supplemented by interviews with Israelis who support Palestinian self-determination. A STATE OF DANGER is a compelling, timely documentary that examines grassroots support, human rights and the role of Arab and Jewish women in bringing peace to the region.
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Beirut: The Last Home Movie
BEIRUT: THE LAST HOME MOVIE is an imaginative film which challenges documentary form and concepts of reality by exposing a personal response to a global event—three months in the life of a Lebanese family living in a heavily-bombed Beirut neighborhood. This extraordinary film captures the real-life experiences of a family living in one of the most chaotic wars in history and provides insight into the psychology of war, 20th century-style. It also reveals the power of cinema verité at its best: a seemingly simple recording of everyday life becomes a fascinating, complex and many-layered look at the connections between personal and political lives.
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Measures of Distance
In this resonant work, Palestinian-born video and performance artist Mona Hatoum explores the renewal of friendship between mother and daughter during a brief family reunion in war-torn Lebanon in 1981. Through letters read in voice-over and Arabic script overlaying the images, the viewer experiences the silence and isolation imposed by war. The politics of the family and the exile of the Palestinian people are inseparable in this forceful, moving film.
With gratitude to the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU, a digital preservation copy of this film now available for exhibition! Please contact [email protected] for more information.
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Susana
In this autobiographical portrait, Susana leaves her native Argentina to live her life outside the strictures of Latin American cultural and family pressures. Susana interweaves cinema vérité interviews of her family and lovers with snapshots, home movies and even a Disney cartoon to render the cultural context in which female, sexual and ethnic identity is shaped.
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