An Angel At My Table (Janet Frame)

A film by Jane Campion

1999, 157 minutes

New Line Cinema

 

The true story of one of the 20^th century's most gifted writers, An Angel At My Table chronicles the life and extraordinary times of Janet Frame. Born in the 1920s, Janet's early years of fairy tales and schoolgirl pranks were tempered by family tragedy. She retreated to her beloved books and began to write poetry and stories.

As the years passed her talent grew and so did the challenges to her unique and inspired vision. But Janet was a woman of rare courage and fierce determination. Her enormous gift for storytelling sustained her through the darkest hour, finally bringing her the success and happiness she so desperately wanted and deserved.

 

Brilliantly captured by director Jane Campion (SWEETIE), An Angel At My Table has become one of the most critically acclaimed films in recent years, capturing over 20 major awards and prizes in film festivals around the world.

 

Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business

A film by Helena Solberg and David Meyer

1994, 90 minutes

International Cinema Inc.

 

Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business is the intimate saga of the star who captured the world's heart and imagination. The film reveals the lasting image of Latin American women she created and serves as a celebration of her glorious talents. Using archival footage, film fragments, interviews and dramatic re-enactments, acclaimed director Helen Solberg goes behind-the-scenes to convey the true life story of the "Brazilian Bombshell."

 

Adrienne Rich

A video by Michael Silverblatt

1992, 60 minutes

Lannan Literary Videos

 

During her 40-year career, Adrienne Rich has been a poet of great moral presence and enduring creative power, a poet whose aesthetic is linked with her political sensibilities. Ms. Rich reads from An Atlas of the Difficult World, Diving into the Wreck and The Fact of a Doorframe and talks with Michael Silverblatt. The reading and conversation took place on May 14, 1992, in Los Angeles, California.

 

Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

A film by Ken Burns and Paul Barnes.

1999, 210 minutes total (two videos)

PBS Video

 

Not For Ourselves Alone tells the dramatic, little-known story of one of the most compelling friendships in American history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were born into a world ruled entirely by men. By the time their lives were over, they had changed for the better the lives of a majority of American citizens. Their personal relationship was often turbulent but they never wavered in their shared belief that equality was the birthright of every woman, and for more than half a century led the fight to make that dream a reality.

 

Part I: Revolution chronicles their early lives, recounts their roles in the struggle against slavery, recreates the 1848 Seneca Falls declaration at which Stanton first demanded votes for women, and recounts the betrayal both women felt when their abolitionist allies abandoned them after the Civil War.

 

Part II: Failure is Impossible tells of the two women's brave, sometimes lonely struggle to build a national woman suffrage movement, of Stanton's increasing radicalism and Anthony's emergence as the most celebrated woman in America. Through neither Stanton nor Anthony lived to see victory, the film ends with passage of the suffrage amendment for which they had struggled most of their lives.

 

With superb live cinematography, compelling interviews, and historical photographs never before seen on screen, this powerful film provides an unforgettable dual portrait of two great Americans who improved the lives of women everywhere.

 

Gertrude Stein: When This You See, Remember Me.

A video by Perry Miller Adato

1995, 89 minutes

Meridian Video

 

A documentary of the renowned American writer, personality and art collector, Gertrude Stein combines photographs, interviews, black-and-white film footage and paintings from Stein's collection with a soundtrack of her words and music from the opera (written by Stein and Virgil Thomson) Four Saints in Three Acts. In tracing Stein's progress from her girlhood in Oakland, California to her three decade-long reign as the linchpin of Parisian intellectual life, the film features Picasso, Eliot, Cocteau and Hemingway among the dozens of writers and artists who frequented the salon of Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas.

 

Alice Walker

A video by Lewis MacAdams and John Dorr

1989, 60 minutes

Lannan Literary Videos

 

Alice Walker wrote her first book of poems as she traveled through Kenya and Uganda. She went on to win a Pulitzer Prize and an American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. Ms. Walker read from Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems, Horses Make A Landscape Look More Beautiful and excerpts from The Color Purple and The Temple of My Familiar in Los Angeles on January 9, 1989. Alice Walker was interviewed at her home in Northern California by journalist Evelyn White.

 

The War Within: A Portrait of Virginia Woolf

A film by John Fuegi and Jo Francis

1995, 52 minutes

Arthur Cantor Films 

This definitive documentary was shot in England at Sissinghurst Castle with its world-famous garden; the 365-room Knole mansion; the rooms at Cambridge where Virginia gathered material for A Room of One's Own; London and Richmond, Charleston and Monk's House, legendary locations in Bloomsbury history. Among those interviewed on camera are Virginia's niece and nephew, Angelica Garnett and Quentin Bell; Vita Sackville-West's son Nigel Nicolson, and Bloomsbury notables like Frances Partridge and poet-novelist Stephen Spender. With archival footage, paintings of the period, and haunting family photos of a Victorian childhood of both beauty and abuse, the film interweaves the personal story of Virginia Woolf's life and loves with the turbulent times she lived in. Rare documents, never filmed until now, include the document in her handwriting used to establish the League of Nations, newly-discovered letters to her beloved Vita, and the Gestapo list where she and Leonard were marked for arrest.

 

 

Ethnicity

 

Beyond Black and White

A film by Nisma Zaman

1994, 28 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

Beyond Black and White is a personal exploration of the filmmaker's bicultural heritage (Caucasian and Asian/Bengali) in which she relates her experiences to those of five other women from various biracial backgrounds. In lively interviews and group discussions these women reveal how they have been influenced by images of women in American media, how racism has affected them, and how their families and environments have shaped their racial identities. Their experiences are placed within the context of history, including miscegenation laws and governmental racial classifications. Beyond Black and White is a remarkable celebration of diversity in American society.

 

The Body of a Poet: A Tribute to Audre Lorde

A film by Sonali Fernando

1995, 29 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

An imaginary biopic, The Body of a Poet centers on the efforts of a group of young lesbians of color to devise a fitting tribute to one of this century's great visionaries. Its genre-bending celebration of the life and work of Audre Lorde, black lesbian poet and political activist, daringly meshes diverse media conventions and techniques as it explores Lorde's trajectory from birth to death. Refreshing and visually stunning, this brave film features assured acting by a dedicated cast and a taut script comprising the work of contemporary African American lesbian poets.

 

I'm BRITISH but...

A film by Gurinder Chadha

1990, 30 minutes

Mongrel Media 

I'm BRITISH but...uncovers a defiant popular culture, part Asian, part British, against a backdrop of fading English nationalism. The rhythms of Bhangra and Bangla music set the pace for this lively collage of interviews with British Asian youth. Mixing archival footage with present day street scenes of Asians in England, this film chronicles the role of race and cultural identity in the formation of modern day British society. I'm BRITISH but... is an engaging critique of nationalisms of any sort and a celebration of cultural diversity and hybridism.

 

Japanese American Women

A videotape by Rosanna Yamigawa Alfaro and Leita Hagemann

1992, 27 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

The stereotype of the polite, docile, exotic Asian woman is shattered in this documentary in which a dozen women speak about their experiences as part of the "model minority." Japanese American Women explores the ambivalent feelings the women have both towards Japan and the United States. The underlying theme is the burden of being different, of being brought up "one of a kind," as opposed to growing up part of an ethnic community. An uneasy feeling prevails of being neither Japanese nor American, and the documentary ultimately becomes the story of Japanese American women and their search for a sense of place.

 

Muslims

Mystic Fire Video

2002

 

Misconceptions and lack of understanding dominate America's perception of Islam, the world's second largest and fastest-growing religion. MUSLIMS takes an in-depth look at what it means to be a Muslim in the 21^st century. Filmed in Egypt, Malaysia, Iran, Turkey, Nigeria and the United States, MUSLIMS explores the influence of culture and politics on religion, and provides a deeper understanding of the political forces at work among Muslims around the world. The film emphasizes Islam's kinship with Christianity and Judaism, and looks at diverse interpretations of Islam among the Muslim people.

 

A Place of Rage

A film by Pratibha Parmar

1991, 52 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

This exuberant celebration of African American women and their achievements features interviews with Angela Davis, June Jordan and Alice Walker. Within the context of the civil rights, Black power and feminist movements, the trio reassesses how women such as Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer revolutionized American society. Angela Davis, at one time the FBI's most wanted woman, recounts her involvement with the Black Panthers and the communist party. Her rarely seen 1970 prison interview, civil rights footage and archival photos are interwoven with June Jordan's powerful poetry, linking issues of homophobia, racism, U.S. imperialism and liberation struggles worldwide. The insights of acclaimed writer Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha enrich this engrossing portrait of African American feminism. A stirring chapter in African American history, highlighted by music from Prince, Janet Jackson, the Neville Brothers and the Staple Singers.

 

Prey

A film by Helen Lee

1995, 26 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

The morning after a break-in at her Korean immigrant father's convenience store, Il Bae, 20-something and strong-willed, catches a hunky shoplifter -- only to discover he's a Native Canadian friend's brother to whom she's powerfully attracted. Physical chemistry, cross-cultural confusions, racism, and the constant threat of urban violence converge in this fast-paced, wryly humorous take-off on love at first sight where trust and desire strike a delicate balance.

 

Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself

A film by Yvonne Welbon

1995, 29 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself: An Autobiography charts the influence of the filmmaker's six-year experience as an African American women in Taiwan after college graduation. This highly original film recounts Welbon's discovery, through another language and culture, of being respected for who she is, without the constant of American racism, and how it helped her achieve self-knowledge. Linking this story with that of earlier women in Welbon's family, the richly textured memoir blends dramatic sequences with documentary footage.

 

A Tajik Woman

A videotape by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa

1994, 20 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

A picture of an unknown Tajik woman found in a Russian book on Tajikistan encourages video maker Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa to reflect on issues of exile and cultural conflict for Muslim women from Afghanistan and Iran living in the United States. Moving interviews with four women (including the director's mother) are interwoven with personal observations, images of the Tajik woman and fascinating footage of Iran and Muslim culture in the US. A Tajik Woman touches on many issues familiar to Muslim immigrants: war and revolution, loss of homeland and conflict with fundamentalist Islamic values. Sharing these stories begins a much-needed dialogue for Muslim women; it also provides a better understanding of Muslim women who now live in the U.S.

 

Events

 

Dr. Anita Hill

Sexual Harassment

University of Pennsylvania

April 4, 1992

 

Northwest International Women's Conference

Isabel Allende

Lift-Off Luncheon -- May 4, 1994

47 minutes

 

Northwest International Women's Conference

Young Women's Forum

February 4, 1995

46 minutes

 

Northwest International Women's Conference

Grand Finale

February 5, 1995

9 minutes

 

 

Global Feminism

 

Drowned Out: We Can't Wish Them Away

Directed by Franny Armstrong

2002, 75 minutes

Bullfrog Films

 

Three choices. Move to the slums in the city, accept a place at a resettlement site or stay at home and drown. The people of Jalsindhi in central India must make a decision fast. In the next few weeks, their village will disappear underwater as the giant Narmada Dam fills.

Bestselling author Arundhati Roy joins the fight against the dam and asks the difficult questions. Will the water go to poor farmers or to rich industrialists? What happened to the 16 million people displaced by fifty years of dam building? Why should I care?

Drowned Out follows the Jalsindhi villagers through hunger strikes, rallies, police brutality and a six-year Supreme Court case. It stays with them as the dam fills and the river starts to rise...

 

Lives Together, Worlds Apart: Men and Women in a Time of Change

United States Population Fund

Some 1.2 billion people--one person in five--are between ages 10 and 19, the largest number of adolescents in history. Half of them are poor; one in four live in extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day. This year's State of the World Population report examines their condition, in the context of changing social norms and lifestyles, including weakening of family support systems, amid globalization and urbanization. The report provides country-specific examples of projects that combine life skills education, including sexuality education, and peer counselling with access to services and points out the high costs and social consequences of failing to adequately meet adolescents' reproductive health and rights.

 

A Woman's Place

1998, 50 minutes

Maryland Public Television

 

(From Demie Kurz) This video was funded by the Ford, Carnegie, and MacArthur Foundations and produced by Maryland Public Television. I really enjoyed it. There are three segments, one with a young South African woman prosecutor who works in villages informing women and men that the South African constitution now guarantees gender equality. The women are very happy, the men are not. A second segment follows a woman prosecutor in Duluth, Minnesota, who is trying to change the laws that disadvantage battered women in court. There are some powerful scenes showing how laws written for men disempower women. The final segment is about a woman lawyer-advocate in Bombay who helps women get out of bad marriages and secure some of the property they are due. Her experiences are very revealing of how marriage and divorce laws punish women. This video is excellent for classroom use. It is very engaging and very informative.

 

Who's Counting: Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada

1995, 52 minutes

Bullfrog Films

 

When Marilyn Waring was elected to the New Zealand parliament in 1975 she thought she might one day return to her first love, classical music. Instead, the 22 year-old MP was re-elected three times and blazed a trail that eventually overturned her government on the nuclear issue and launched her as the foremost speaker for global feminist economics.

 

Witty, irreverent and accomplished in what she calls "the art of the dumb question," Waring challenge the myths of economics, its elitist stance, and our tacit compliance with political agendas that masquerade as objective economic policy. Why isn't the unpaid work of women counted in the gross domestic product? Why is there no place in the national accounts for negative figures or costs to the environment? Why is the market economy all that counts?

 

Women at the Intersection of Racism and Other Oppressions

2003, 30 minutes

Center for Women's Global Leadership

 

This new, intriguing video explores the meaning of intersectionality and women's strategies for overcoming oppressions through focusing on highlights of three testimonies: violations in war, conflict and genocide - ethnic Chinese women in Indonesia; violations of bodily integrity and sexuality - Roma women in Serbia; violations on account of migration and immigration - Haitian women immigrants in the Dominican Republic. The video also celebrates the organizing strategies used by women's groups to work against intersectional discrimination. The companion study guide to the video utilizes interactive methodologies to help groups develop strategies for analysis and action by gaining better understanding of intersectionality as presented in the video testimonies and by developing skills to use an intersectional human rights methodology in their work to overcome racism and the multiple oppression women face.

 

Women Speak Up: A video collection of women's voices from around the world

Produced by Esther Farnsworth and Linda Leehman

1996, 58 minutes

Multicultural Media

 

The United Nations' International Women's Forum

Huairou, China, August 30 - September 8, 1995 

 

Women Speak Up is a colorful collage of plenaries, workshops, interviews, spontaneous events and music from the Fourth United Nation's International Women's NGO (non-governmental organization) Forum that took place in Huairou and Beijing, China, August 30 through September 8, 1995, and was attended by 30,000 women from 189 countries. It captures the serious predominant themes of the Forum, but it also portrays the joyful celebration of women being together. The women articulate the story well and give us all reason for hope.

 

Women and Islam

30 minutes

 

Leila Ahmed, professor of women's studies at Amherst, argues the case for revision of the widely-held views in the Islamic world about the role of women, using examples from history and the role played by women in the contemporary world. She explains the origin of the veil, and discusses the issue of marriage and women's rights within marriage.

 

 

Labor

 

The Global Assembly Line

A videotape by Lorraine Gray

58 minutes

New Day Films

 

Traveling from Tennessee to Mexico's Northern Border, from Silicon Valley to the Philippines, The Global Assembly Line takes viewers inside our new global economy. A vivid portrayal of the lives of working women and men on the "free trade zones" of developing countries and North America, as U.S. industries close their factories to search the globe for lower-wage workforces. We take a rare look at the people who are making the clothing we wear and the electronic goods we use - as well as the business decisions behind manufacturing - on the global assembly line.

 

Outriders

A documentary by Pamela Yates and Peter Kinoy

1998, 54 minutes

Skylight Pictures

 

In June 1998, fifty poor and homeless people crowd on a bus to document poverty in America. For thirty days these members of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union criss-cross the United States collecting stories from other poor Americans. Their goal; to present this evidence to the United Nations and to indict the U.S. government for violations of their economic human rights.

 

The Outriders know that this trip won't be easy. Infants, teens, mothers and grandmothers cramped on a bus each day and sleeping out each night. But what the Outriders don't know is that this will also be a journey to the deepest places in their souls, and that this trip will change each of them forever.

 

Wage Slaves: Not Getting By in America

Investigative Reports

100 minutes

A&E Home Video

They struggle to make ends meet, holding down jobs that pay $6 or $7 an hour. They are the "working poor," there are millions of them, and their plight is unfamiliar to most people fortunate enough not to experience it for themselves.

This eye-opening, two-hour Investigative Reports shows what it is like to work full time and remain forever hovering near the poverty line. In preparing her bestselling book, Nickel and Dimed in America, author Barbara Ehrenreich embarked on a grim odyssey through three cities and half a dozen minimum wage jobs. What emerges is a view of the American experience many of us would prefer to ignore, a rare look at how prosperity appears from the bottom looking up, and a critical examination of the policies that shape the harsh realities of life among the working poor.

 

With Babies and Banners

A film by Lorraine Gray

45 minutes

New Day Films

 

The classic With Babies and Banners presents the untold story of the women who became the backbone of the Great General Motors Sit-Down Strike of 1937 -- U.S. history's key event in the drive for industrial unionism. The nation's eyes were on the men inside the auto plants, while the women outside progressed from manning the strike kitchens to leading the famous Women's Emergency Brigade. Forty years later, nine of these women reunite, and show the relevance of their experience for people today.

 

Union Maids

A film by Jim Klein, Miles Mogulescu and Julia Reichert

50 minutes

New Day Films

 

Union Maids is the vivid story of women organizing in the 1930s. Sit-downs, scabs, squads, unemployment, hunger marches, red baiting and finally the energetic birth of the C.I.O. -- the 1930s were a landmark period for the American labor movement. Union Maids is the story of three women who lived the history and make it come alive today.

 

When Mother Comes Home for Christmas.

A film by Nilita Vachani

1996, 109 minutes

ZDF and FilmSixteen

 

Josephine is a migrant worker from Sri Lanka appointed to take full time care of little Isadora in Greece.  Josephine's own children are left to a less fortunate fate in the home country.  After an absence of 8 years, Josephine travels to Sri Lanka to visit her children for a month and the camera captures the complicated feelings of loss and longing that are the inevitable companions to this transitory union.

 

Harlan County, USA

103 minutes, 1976

Academy Award, Best Documentary, 1976

 

Portraying a classic twentieth century conflict between labor and management, Harlan County, USA chronicles the efforts of 180 coal mining families to win a United Mine Workers contract in Kentucky. The real beauty of Harlan County, USA is the intimacy with which we come to know those 180 families. We see the emotions and changes which occurred during their year long strike. And finally, we come to realize the strike is only a year out of a lifelong struggle.  

 

 

Politics

 

Fly Girls

A documentary by Laurel Ladevich

1999, 60 minutes

WGBH Educational Foundation

 

At the height of World War II, more than a thousand women left their homes and jobs for the opportunity of a lifetime - to become the first female pilots to fly for the United States military. Eager to prove themselves, they faced danger and discrimination, and 38 gave their lives for their country. Drawing on archival footage, rarely seen home movies, and interviews with the participants themselves, Fly Girls tells the fascinating story of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Led by America's most accomplished aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran, these courageous women logged more than sixty million miles, ferrying planes throughout the United States, test-piloting experimental aircraft, and training men to fly. Still, the WASP fought a daily - and sometimes deadly - battle for respect. The WASP's contribution to America's war effort was invaluable, yet mostly forgotten. In Fly Girls, the women of the WASP take wing once again, to tell their story of skill, determination and courage.

 

Iron Jawed Angels

123 minutes                 

HBO Films

 

Iron Jawed Angels recounts for a contemporary audience a key chapter in U.S. history: in this case, the struggle of suffragists who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. Focusing on the two defiant women, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor), the film shows how these activists broke from the mainstream women's-rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries of political protest to secure women's voting rights in 1920. Breathing life into the relationships between Paul, Burns and others, the movie makes the women feel like complete characters instead of one-dimensional figures from a distant past.

 

 

Juggling Work And Family

2 hours

PBS Special

 

In an era where dual-career couples and single parents have become the norm, mothers and fathers are getting caught in a work-family conflict that pits the "ideal-worker" against the "ideal-parent." In this timely documentary, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith examines the impact and implications of a massive shift in our workforce that has buried the traditional father-breadwinner/mother-housewife family model. Incisive case studies, innovative corporate and union initiatives, and analyses by experts addressing the tension between work and family provide insights into people's struggle to reconcile workplace expectations with family needs. Experts say the time has come for America to realign its priorities and create ways to protect the family-but how can it be done without sacrificing America's competitive advantages?

 

See Jane Run: How Women Get Elected

A video by Janet Bossom

1996, 56 minutes

Banner Productions

 

Whether you are thinking about politics as a career, or you are just generally interested in politics, See Jane Run offers a wealth of interesting behind-the-scenes information to increase your knowledge and viewing enjoyment. See Jane Run presents an arresting overview of a unique program at a prominent Ivy League university that has created a school especially to train women in the fundamental skills to be successful political campaigners. Through the eyes of several veteran women politicians, including Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first woman to run for Vice President of the United States, gubernatorial and other candidates, you'll hear war stories about winning and losing.

 

Women as politicians -- In this documentary you will get to look into the fascinating process by which women will become seated at the table when the laws that affect women are passed.

 

Women as candidates -- Who chooses politics today as a career and why? The women in this documentary range from 19 to 70 years of age. What they share in common is that they each want to make a difference.

 

Media skills -- See candidates of the future learn how to be effective and successful on camera or on radio, saying just what they want to say, learning how to give a sound bite and how to take charge of an interview.

 

Fundraising -- Probably the most important and difficult element in any political campaign, learn how and where to get the money.

 

Ethics -- A memorable discussion with recent candidates who reveal provocative and important experiences from their actual political battles.

 

            Do women write the same checks as men?

Do women support women candidates?

     Do women govern differently than men?

 

Standing On My Sister's Shoulders

60 minutes

Film by Laura Lipson, 2002

 

In 1965, when three women walked into the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C., they had come a very long way. They weren't lawyers or politicians. They were not rich. They were women from Mississippi who had been descendants of African slaves. They had worked the cotton fields in the U.S. State of Mississippi and had come to their country's capitol to seek their civil rights. And they were the first black women to be allowed in the senate chambers in nearly 100 years.

STANDING ON MY SISTER'S SHOULDERS is the award-winning documentary that tells this grassroots history of the Mississippi women who played a crucial role in the US Civil Rights movement. These living legends give their firsthand testimony and capture a piece of history that is often overlooked in history books. Their achievements go beyond the cotton fields of Mississippi or even the coasts of America. These are true grassroots heroines, in the most oppressive of societies, who proved that anyone can take a stand and fight for human rights.

 

 

Taking our Bodies Back: The Women's Health Movement

33 minutes

Cambridge Documentary Films

 

We completed our first film, "Taking Our Bodies Back: The Women's Health Movement" in 1974. The "shocking" thesis of this film, that women should control their health and regain the knowledge about their bodies that had been withheld by the male dominated medical industry, became a major focus for the women's movement of America.  

"Taking Our Bodies Back" explores ten critical areas of the women's health movement, from the revolutionary concept of self-help to the issue of informed surgical consent.  

The film documents a growing movement in the 1970s of women regaining control of their own bodies. It shows women becoming aware of their right in dealing with the medical industry.  

 

 

Sexuality

 

Finding Our Way: Men Talk About Their Sexuality

A film by Nicolas Kaufman, Mark Lipman, and Cooper Thompson

40 minutes

New Day Films

 

"This frank and free-flowing series of discussions by men about their sexuality invites honest inquiry on the part of the viewer. It facilitates exploration of topics such as: the search for intimacy, anxiety about 'sexual performance,' homosexuality, masturbation, AIDS, sex and aging, sensuality, and relatedness."

 --Judith Jordan, Ph.D., Director, Women's Studies Program, McLean Hospital

 

Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives

A film by Aerlyn Weissman and Lynne Fernie

1995, 85 minutes

National Film Board of Canada

 

Compelling, often hilarious and always rebellious, the ten women interviewed in Forbidden Love paint a portrait of lesbian sexuality and survival in Canada during the 1950s and '60s, when lesbian love was "the love that dared not speak its name." Against a fascinating backdrop of book covers from lesbian pulp novels, tabloid headlines, archival photographs and film clips, these women tell stories about their first loves and their search for the beer parlors and bars where openly 'gay' women were tolerated in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. With the irreverence and candor of true survivors, they describe the butch/femme subcultures and romance they found in these bars and the harassment and intolerance they encountered as they sought to live and love in their clandestine world.

 

Their histories are interwoven with a fictional love story (Laura moves to the big city and meets Mitch) inspired by the then-popular lesbian paperback novels. Unlike the tragic outcomes in the lesbian novels of the '50s, in this "film within a film" there is a happy ending. An interview with novelist Ann Bannon and the reminiscences of the women who read these books bring to life the contrast between the way lesbians were fictionalized and their actual experiences. Forbidden Love proudly shows a community once consigned to the 'twilight world' of silence and exile. In doing so, it brings lesbian history out of the closet and contributes a valuable history of sexuality in Canada.

 

Women Like Us/Women Like That

A two-part video series by Suzanne Neild and Rosalind Pearson

1990/1991, 49/25 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

Sixteen lesbians, ranging in age from 50 to 80+, from diverse backgrounds, tell about their lives from the 1920s to the present in Women Like Us. Moving and intimate portraits explore the experience of women during World War II, butch/femme roles, the emergence of modern feminism, and coming out later in life to husbands and children. Women Like That is a poignant sequel to Women Like Us in which eight participants discuss their changed lives since the tape's popular broadcast in England.

 

 

 

 

Social Welfare

 

Love & Diane

A film by Jenifer Dworkin

2002, 167 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

Jennifer Dworkin's groundbreaking documentary "Love and Diane" presents a searingly honest and moving examination of poverty, welfare and drug rehabilitation in the United States today. Filmed in New York City over a five-year period, Dworkin documents the struggles of three generations of the Hazzard family as they face a myriad of emotional, financial and personal challenges.

"Love and Diane" is at its heart a highly charged story about a mother and daughter searching for love, redemption and hope for a new future. While caught in a devastating cycle of teen pregnancy and the bureaucracy of an over burdened welfare system, they demonstrate an inspiring resiliency and ability to find strength during the most desperate times. Without falling into stereotypes of welfare and poverty, "Love and Diane" casts a fair, non-judgmental eye on the Hazzard's and presents a forgotten, but very real, side of the American experience.

 

 

Violence Against Women

 

After the Montreal Massacre

A film by Gerry Rogers

1995, 28 minutes

National Film Board of Canada

 

December 6, 1989. Sylvie Gagnon was attending her last day of classes at Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal, when Marc Lepine entered the building. Systematically separating the women from the men, he opened fire on women students, yelling "you're all a bunch of feminists." Sylvie survived a bullet wound to the head while fourteen other women were murdered. After the Montreal Massacre is a useful tool for helping us come to terms with these murders and how they relate to the larger picture of male violence against women. Women throughout Canada and the world are expressing a growing concern about the widespread violence and mounting fear in their daily lives. The haunting images taken on the day of the massacre and in the days following, set the stage for an exploration of the urgent issues of misogyny, male violence and sexism. Testimony from Sylvie Gagnon about what the massacre means to her, conversations with a group of college students, and interviews with noted writers, feminist activists and leaders of organizations for women, contribute to this moving and important documentary which provides a challenge for change in our political, social, and personal lives.

 

 

Battered Women

45 minutes

CBS News2000

 

Every twelve seconds, somewhere in America a woman is being battered-a crime that is usually kept hidden behind closed doors. This two-part series seeks to understand the violence that occurs in one out of four relationships-violence that can have lethal consequences for victim and victimizer alike.

 

Part I: Under Siege

 

Why do some men beat- and even kill- the women they profess to love? In this program, women battered by husbands or boyfriends speak out about their experiences. Their stories create a mosaic of pain and fear, courage and determination, while answering the question: "Why did you stay with him?" The case of Lisa Bianco, who relied on the due process of law for protection and was murdered by her ex-husband, is included. Crusading photographer Donna Ferrato and committed bodyguard Greg Kottke are also profiled.

 

Part II: Fighting Back

 

When a woman kills a man who beats her, is it murder? Or is it justice? This program examines the legality of when, if ever, a victim of domestic violence is justified in killing her abuser. The Jane Abbott and Linda Logan cases assess the courtroom admissibility of evidence of battering, while the high-profile Lorena Bobbitt case and others raise the question of whether the plea of battered woman syndrome can be manipulated into a license to maim-or kill.

 

 

Defending Our Lives

30 minutes

Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc.

 

Defending Our Lives, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Film, exposes the magnitude and severity of domestic violence in this country. This video features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. These women were forced to defend their lives, and this documentary captures the cruel irony of putting them behind bars once they have finally escaped their abusers. They have chosen to share their stories, hoping to inspire creative strategies for ending this violence. Defending Our Lives aims to educate people about domestic violence and to spur legislative and judicial reform. It is appropriate for people working on any aspect of this issue, including general education, legal reform, police training, battered women advocacy, counseling, prosecution and defense, human rights activism, and community education.

 

 

Senorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman

A film by Lourdes Portillo
2001
74 minutes

''Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman'' tells the haunting story of the more than 200 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. Visually poetic, yet unflinching in its gaze, this compelling investigation unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed for the brutal murders of women living along the Mexico-U.S. border. In the midst of Juárez's international mystique and high profile job market, there exists a murky history of grossly underreported human rights abuses and violence against women. Relying on what Portillo comes to see as the most reliable of sources - the testimonies of the families of the victims -" Señorita Extraviada" documents a two-year search for the truth in the underbelly of the new global economy. An Independent Television Service (ITVS) Production.

 

 

Waking Up to Rape

A film by Meri Weingarten

1985, 35 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

"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 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

 

 

48 Hours: Shred of Evidence

CBS News 1994

 

Interview with a rape victim who recalls her experience and tries to remember the characteristics of her aggressor.

 

 

Women's Movements

 

Beyond Beijing: The International Women's Movement

A film by Salome Chasnoff

1996, 60 minutes

Beyond media

 

Beyond Beijing is an independent documentary produced by women about the largest meeting of women in world history, the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum on Women in Huairou, China, in September 1995. There, over 30,000 activists convened to communicate, collaborate, celebrate, and influence the outcome of the parallel United National Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In this video kaleidoscope constructed of Forum events, journalistic interviews and intimate conversations, every speaker is a narrator, producing a text that is stylistically mixed, inclusive of multiple cultures and perspectives, and intentionally open-ended, thus challenging the viewer to participate in the spirit of  "Beijing."

 

Half the People

A video by Anne Moir

1999, 60 minutes

People's Century, WGBH Videos

 

You can't keep a good woman down! By the late 1960s, women challenged every facet of male dominance in American Society. Marches, walkouts, boycotts, bra-burnings, lawsuits and anthems helped women unite against discrimination and ultimately achieve equal rights.  In Half the People you'll see how women broke down barriers to govern nations, lead corporations and confront the abortion issue.  See the slow transition from domestic denizens to world leaders, beginning with the Women's Suffrage movement in 1920 through today's generation of empowered women.

 

Seneca Reflections: Celebrating 150 Years of Women's Rights

1998

Publisher, the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy

 

At the 150th anniversary of the First Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, we asked participants and keynote speakers, women's studies scholars and historical performers, to put the 1848 convention in perspective for a contemporary audience, and to reflect on its unique significance to our time. Seneca Reflections is a rare, personal tribute to the remarkable women -- past and present -- whose lives have furthered the cause of women's rights, included are the voices of Betty Friedan, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Donna Shalala, Sally Roesch Wagner, Judy Wellman, Coline Jenkins-Sahlin, Karen Staser, and others. Their strong, insightful comments will contribute to any discussion of women's issues.

 

Some American Feminists

A film by Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard and Margaret Wescott

1980, 56 minutes

Women Make Movies

 

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 on the light of the 1990s backlash. Inspirational interviews with Ti-Grace Atkinson, Rita Mae Brown, Betty Freidan, 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.

 

To Empower Women: The Beijing Women's Conference

A video by Margot Smith, narrated by Bella Abzug

1999, 28 minutes

Off Center Video

 

From the largest gathering of women in history, a global movement is led by women who are intent on improving their lives in their own communities. Here, women from Zimbabwe, Germany, Papua New Guinea, Iran, the Philippines, China, Israel, the Solomon Islands, and the United States speak out. They tell of actions they are taking right now to address the problems of women in their countries and worldwide. The Beijing Conference produced the strongest consensus of women's equality, empowerment and justice endorsed by governments. Signed by 1889 nations, the Beijing Declaration is a magnificent vision for a world we all want to live in. The Platform for Action is the practical, specific, and comprehensive directive for bringing it about. Five planks from the Platform - poverty, education, human rights and armed conflict -- frame the video.

 

 

Women and Popular Culture

 

DreamWorlds II: Desire, Sex and Power in Music Video

A film by Sut Jhally

Media Education Foundation

 

How do the images of popular culture influence how young women and men understand themselves and each other? By focusing on one of the most important aspects of popular culture

-- music video -- DreamWorlds II powerfully illustrates the systematic representations of women in music video, and how these representations tell a dangerous and narrow set of stories abut what it means to be female or male; stories which impact how women think about themselves sexually, and how men think sexually about women. Shocking and often disturbing, Dream Worlds II gives us a critical distance from images that have become so ubiquitous, and normal, they are almost invisible.

 

Warning: This video features a very disturbing scene of sexual violence. It is imperative that viewers are properly warned of this and are given the option of leaving the room.

 

Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women

A film featuring Jean Kilbourne

1979, 34 minutes

Media Education Foundation

 

Slim Hopes: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness

A film featuring Jean Kilbourne

1995, 30 minutes

Media Education Foundation

 

Why do 80% of 10-year-old girls diet? Why do 8 million Americans suffer from anorexia or bulimia? Using examples of over 120 ads from magazines and T.V., Slim Hopes offers a new way to think about demoralizing and life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. The seven main parts are as follows: Impossible Beauty, The Waif Look, Constructed Bodies, Food & Sex, The Weight Loss Industry, and Freeing Imaginations.

 

 

Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women

A film featuring Jean Kilbourne

1987, 32 minutes

Cambridge Documentary Films

 

The sequel to the original Killing Us Softly this documentary overthrew forever the complacent views that American advertising is benevolent, entertaining and supportive of women's ideas of themselves.

 

Using examples of ads from magazines, newspapers and billboards, this film presents a concise analysis of a $200 billion a year industry that preys on the fears and insecurities of consumers.

 

 

Women Who Made the Movies

A film by Gwendolyn Foster-Dixon

1991, 56 minutes

 

From the very beginnings of motion picture history, women have played prominent roles in front of the camera. But little is known abut the major roles women played behind the camera. Women were making films of great importance at the same time that such better known directors as D.W. Griffith and Edwin S. Porter were monopolizing cinema history. Until now, much of their contributions have been forgotten. This program traces the careers and films of such filmmakers as Alice Guy Blache, the first person o make a film with a plot (in 1896), and the first person to synchronize sound with film. Others documented include Ida Lupino, better known for her acting, Ruth Ann Baldwin, director of many early Westerns, Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film propagandist as well as Dorothy Davenport Reid Lois Weber, Kathlyn Williams, Cleo Madison, and many other women who made a lasting contribution to cinema history.  The use of clips from many of these rare films, as well as stills and other archival materials, bring to life the works of these often-neglected filmmakers. And appropriately, the music used in the film was composed and played by a variety of all-women jazz orchestras of the era.

 

 

 

Popular Movies

 

Blonde Venus

A film by Josef Von Sternberg

1932, 89 minutes

MCA Home Video

 

Marlene Dietrich is an aspiring young actress who gives up the stage to marry a hopeful scientist (Herbert Marshall). When he's afflicted with radium poisoning that only a costly European specialist can cure, Dietrich (now a housewife and mother) returns to cabaret life and meets a wealthy playboy (Cary Grant) who gives her the money for her husband's treatment. In his absence, she moves into Grant's grand home with her 5-year-old son (Dickie Moore). When Marshall returns cured earlier than expected and discovers her infidelity, Dietrich takes her little boy and flees south. Ultimately realizing that life on the run is fruitless, she surrenders the boy to his father and before you can push the fast forward button she is the biggest star in Paris. Dietrich is the center of three elaborately staged songs, appearing in a gorilla suit for her famous Hot Voodoo production number. Directed by her longtime associate Josef Von Sternberg, Blonde Venus is for everyone who considers Marlene Dietrich one of the supreme theatrical stars of this century.

 

The Company of Strangers

Directed by Cynthia Scott

1991

National Film Board of Canada

 

When their bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, the seven ladies never imagined that this would give them the chance to re-capture their youth. Stranded at a deserted farmhouse, they didn't have much food, a decent place to sleep, or much in common. But they turned a crisis into a magical time of humor and spirit.

 

The Lady from Shanghai

Directed by Orson Welles

1948, 87 minutes

 

Baffling murders, fascinating plot twists and remarkable camera work all contribute to this spell-binding, time-honored