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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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The Gold Diggers
Now digitally remastered! Sally Potter’s ground-breaking first feature examining the relationship between women and capitalism.
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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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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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