Without a Whisper
A film by Katsitsionni Fox
WITHOUT A WHISPER - KONNON:KWE is the untold story of the profound influence of Indigenous women on the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States.
US | 2020 | 27 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. W201257 |
SYNOPSIS
WITHOUT A WHISPER - KONNON:KWE uncovers the hidden history of the profound influence Indigenous women had on the beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the United States.
Before the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, European colonial women lacked even the most basic rights, while Haudenosaunee women had a potent political and spiritual voice and authority in all aspects of their lives. The contact that the early suffragists had with Haudenosaunee women in New York state shaped their thinking and had a vital impact on their struggle for equality that is taken for granted today. The film follows Mohawk Bear Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner as they seek to correct the historical narrative about the origins of women’s rights in the United States.
PRESS
"A testimony to a history that has been suppressed, this sensitive documentary is evidence of Haudenosaunee continuity and resurgence. It should be required viewing in US history and women’s/gender studies courses."
"A great introduction to the beginning of the women’s rights movement and provides wonderful insight into the matriarchal structure of the Haudenosaunee people."
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Winner, Best Short Film, Female Voices Rock Film Festival
- Best Documentary Short, Red Nation International Film Festival
- 2nd Runner Up, Documentary Short, Woods Hole Film Festival
- Honorable Mention, Documentary Short, Roxbury International Film Festival
- Humboldt International Film Festival
- Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series – Brooklyn, NY
- Boston Int’l Women’s Film Festival
- American Indian Film and Video Festival
- Anchorage International Film Festival
- Santa Fe Film Festival
- North Dakota Human Rights Film Festival
- Haudenosaunee Filmmakers Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Katsitsionni Fox
Katsitsionni has been making films since 2003 in the Mohawk Territory of Akwesasne, where she resides. Her film “Ohero:kon - Under the Husk,” following the journey of two Mohawk girls as they take part in their traditional passage rites to becoming Mohawk Women, received funding from Vision Maker Media and was broadcast on many PBS stations. Katsitsionni received the Jane Glassco Award for Emerging Filmmaker at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival in 2016 as well as the Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking Award at LA Skins Fest in 2016. She produced a series of twelve short segments for REMATRIATION, a Native American women's online, multi-media magazine, that is focused on healing and empowerment of Native women through the sharing of their stories and successes. Her latest documentary, WITHOUT A WHISPER, is an untold story of how Native American women helped to inspire the struggle of American women’s suffrage movement in the United States. (09/20)
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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