WATCH CLIP

Shooting Women

A film by Alexis Krasilovsky

2008 | 54 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Subtitled | Order No. 09963

Featuring more than 50 camerawomen from around the world, SHOOTING WOMEN, by pioneering filmmaker and cinema studies professor Alexis Krasilovsky, celebrates the amazing talent and unflinching spirit of image-making women from the sets of Hollywood and Bollywood to the war zones of Afghanistan.

Host a screening
Watch on Docuseek

SYNOPSIS

Featuring more than 50 camerawomen from around the world, and shot over a period of six years, SHOOTING WOMEN, by pioneering filmmaker and cinema studies professor Alexis Krasilovsky, celebrates the amazing talent and unflinching spirit of image-making women from the sets of Hollywood and Bollywood to the war zones of Afghanistan.

This internationally-acclaimed documentary, based on Krasilovsky’s book Women Behind the Camera, broaches the persistent issues of the glass ceiling, sexual harassment, and childcare for professional camerawomen around the globe—working from environments where raising such issues is seen as “unprofessional.” Krasilovsky and Harriet Margolis have also co-authored the book, Shooting Women: Behind the Camera, Around the World with Julia Stein.

With wide-ranging access and rich diversity, SHOOTING WOMEN offers insight from top directors of photography like Ellen Kuras (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) and Sandi Sissel (SALAAM BOMBAY), while giving voice to stories of groundbreaking women like African-American Jessie Maple Patton, who sued the American union and networks for the right to work. From historic footage of Mao’s travels from China’s first camerawoman, to the secretly filmed beatings of women in Afghanistan, viewers are offered a glimpse of how women behind the camera are changing the world.

PRESS

“Powerful footage…. [A]n educational, political, and social tool..”

Video Librarian

“Its scope is breathtaking and the women’s voices riveting…. Brings women cinematographers around the world clearly into view.”

Kathleen McHugh Professor & Dir., UCLA Center for the Study of Women

“An important film for EVERYONE who collaborates on motion pictures and all who watch them.”

Thomas McKenney Int’l Cinematographers Guild

“Beautifully empowering! Inspiring, especially for the generation of youth who may be interested in pursuing cinematography as their future profession. Everyone should do themselves a favor by watching this!”

Sinsu Co Screen Actors Guild

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • San Francisco Women’s Film Festival, Best Women in Cinema Award & Tribute Award
  • Female Eye Film Festival, Best Documentary Film
  • Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts, Best Long Form Documentary
  • Moondance Int’l Film Festival, Spirit of Moondance Award Best Documentary Feature
  • WOW (Women of the World) Film Festival, Australia, Best International Documentary
  • Tiburon Int’l Film Festival
  • Filmmor Women's Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey
  • DOXA Documentary Film Festival
  • WOW Film Festival, Sweden
  • DOCNZ Forum
  • Manaki Film Festival
  • International Women's Film Festival, Israel
  • Jeevika: Asia Livelihood Documentary Festival
  • Lady Bug Film Festival
  • Lady Filmmakers Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Alexis Krasilovsky

After studying film history at Yale University, Alexis Krasilovsky embarked on a career as an independent filmmaker and holographer. She later received an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.

In addition to writing and directing the film, SHOOTING WOMEN, Alexis is the author of the book "Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling” (Routledge – 2nd Place Winner, 2019 International Writers’ Awards). Under the pseudonym Alexis Rafael, she wrote "Sex and the Cyborg Goddess,” a portrait of a filmmaker as a young woman facing sexual harassment – winner of the 2018 Irwin Award for Best #MeToo Novel of the Year. She is also co-author of the book, "Shooting Women: Behind the Camera, Around the World," by Harriet Margolis, Alexis Krasilovsky and Julia Stein (Intellect Press, UK; U Chicago Press, October 2015, available in paperback and eBook here and via Amazon).

Krasilovsky was the first to include the film techniques of zooming and dissolving in a motion picture hologram, CREATED AND CONSUMED BY LIGHT (1975). Her pro-choice hologram, CHILDBIRTH DREAM, was exhibited at the Georges Pompidou Center and other museums and festivals here and abroad.

As head of her own production company – Rafael Film, LLC – Krasilovsky has written, directed and produced numerous documentaries, video-poems and art films, including END OF THE ART WORLD, EXILE, WHAT MEMPHIS NEEDS and BLOOD, reviewed in the Los Angeles Times as "in its stream-of-consciousness way, more powerful than Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver.’" Her global documentary feature, WOMEN BEHIND THE CAMERA, won five Best Documentary awards, as well as a Tribute Award for achievement in independent cinema from the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival and a lifetime achievement award from the Gdansk DocFilm Festival. Krasilovsky’s most recent film, THE PARKING LOT OF DREAMS (2021) addresses the isolation of the pandemic through poetry.

Meeting other filmmakers at festivals around the world that have screened her work compelled Krasilovsky to think transitionally and transculturally, exploring the perils and pleasures of pastry in PASTRIOLOGY (2013) and LET THEM EAT CAKE (2014) with the help of co-producers and unit producers from Bangladesh, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Peru, the Republic of Guinea, Turkey and other countries.

Alexis Krasilovsky is Professor in the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Northridge, where she has taught film production, screenwriting and media theory and criticism.

Krasilovsky is a member of the Alliance of Women Directors, the International Documentary Association, GreenLight Women, Women in Film, and the Writers Guild of America. (09/21)

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Girl From God’s Country: The History of Women in Film and Other War Stories

GIRL FROM GOD'S COUNTRY is the untold story of the first female independent filmmaker and action-adventure heroine, Nell Shipman (1892-1970), who left Hollywood to make her films in Idaho.
Learn more

Golden Gate Girls

In GOLDEN GATE GIRLS author and professor S. Louisa Wei tells the story of filmmaker Esther Eng, the first woman to direct Chinese-language film in the US, and the most prominent woman director in Hong Kong in the 1930’s. A San Francisco native and open lesbian, her contribution to film history is sadly overlooked – her 11 feature films mostly lost. After the retirement of director Dorothy Arzner in 1943 and before Ida Lupino began directing in 1949, Eng was the only woman directing feature length films in the US. Wei’s documentary paints a fascinating picture of how Eng’s career in filmmaking broke through gender and racial boundaries in Hollywood and Hong Kong, at a time when opportunities for Chinese women in the industry were few and far between. With a captivating archive of newly discovered images and interviews with those who knew her, Wei uncovers a rich chapter of film history that challenges both gender hierarchies and national narratives. Essential viewing for Cinema Studies and Asian American Studies.
Learn more

Women Who Made the Movies

From the very beginnings of motion picture history, women have played prominent roles in front of the camera. But little is known about the major roles women played behind the camera as directors, writers, editors and other creative roles. Women were making films of great importance at the same time that better known male directors such as Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith were monopolizing cinema history. Until recently, many of their contributions have been forgotten or ignored. WOMEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES traces the careers and films of directors such as Alice Guy Blaché, arguably the first person to direct a film with a plot in 1896, "La Fée Aux Choux," who also experimented with color, synchronized sound, and films that gradually became more and more ambitious in length and subject matter. Others documented in this film include Ida Lupino, who also had a long career as an actor; Ruth Ann Baldwin, who directed numerous early westerns; Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film propagandist; as well as Dorothy Davenport Reid, Lois Weber, Kathlyn Williams, Germaine Dulac, Cleo Madison and many other women who made a lasting contribution to film history. WOMEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES features film clips, stills and other archival materials, bringing to life the work of these essential and often neglected filmmakers.
Learn more

My Filmmaking, My Life

Matilde Landeta entered the flourishing Mexican film industry in the 1930s, working her way up from script girl to direct 110 shorts and, in the late 40s, to produce and direct three features, including LA NEGRA ANGUSTIAS. In this engrossing documentary filmed in Mexico City, a vibrant Landeta, now in her 70s, recalls those years. Interviews with Mexican directors Marcela Fernandez-Violante and Maria Novaro enrich this illuminating tribute. Produced by Jane Ryder. 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.
Learn more
Shopping Cart