Women Composers (1976)

Pin-Up, the Revenge of a Sex Symbol

The pin-up is not just a pretty young woman, not so much dressed and fantasized. This popular American icon would even become a symbol of feminine claims. As soon as we pronounce the word "Pin-up", it's an erotic and retro cliché that comes to mind. We imagine a beautiful ingenue in light clothes looking at us with a smile, endless legs and sexy underwear to guess the curve of a buttock. This short-dressed girl who looks at us in the corner and smiles at us frankly, is an erotic icon.

Radical Harmonies

Interviews and performance footage are used to provide an overview of the women's music scene.

1979: Big Bang of the Present

Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.

Town Bloody Hall

Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists — Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling — debate the issue of Women's Liberation.

Ouaga Girls

A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.

Duet

Mısra and Defne are close friends and duet partners who met each other through synchronized swimming. After failing to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, they set a shared goal, the 2020 Olympics. Not too long after, their esteemed coach Natalie is fired by the federation with no explanation. What follows is an emotional devastation and disruption of scheduled practices, which in turn leads to a decline in their performances. Political tremors in Turkey and the global pandemic lead the duet to make a decision on whether to keep the fight or to find new paths in life.

Stormé: Lady of the Jewel Box

“It ain’t easy…being green” is the favorite expression of Stormé DeLarverie, a woman whose life flouted prescriptions of gender and race. During the 1950s and '60s 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.

L7: Pretend We're Dead

A real time journey witnessing the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the fierce feminist pioneers of American grunge punk: L7.

Black Women, Sexual Politics and the Revolution

Focuses on sexual equality in the Black community.

In France with Madonna

France is at the heart of Madonna's life. She is inspired by French culture and its values and has surrounded herself with French artists for many years. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Queen of Pop's career, this film revisits the close and unique bond between Madonna and France and features testimonials from close collaborators and French friends who have helped create her unique artistic universe: Maripol, Jean Paul Gaultier, Julien d'Ys, Nicolas Huchard, and Marion Motin. Today's artists such as Florence Foresti, Leïla Slimani, Victor Weinsanto and HollySiz talk about the influence of this emancipating figure, which extends far beyond music.

Jodie Foster - Hollywood under the skin

From her precocious status as a sex symbol to her consecration as a filmmaker, Jodie Foster's story is about a feminist struggle, albeit atypical, fought on and off the screen. This film sets out to retrace her remarkable journey within the Hollywood industry.

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché

The death of punk icon and X-Ray Spex front-woman Poly Styrene sends her daughter on a journey through her mother's archives in this intimate documentary.

Bontok, Rapeless

Two Filipina victims of sexual abuse search the truth behind the finding of a renowned anthropologist: that merely a few generations ago, the Bontok Igorot lived in what seems an unthinkable utopia—a rape-less society.

!W.A.R.: !Women Art Revolution

Through intimate interviews, provocative art, and rare, historical film and video footage, this feature documentary reveals how art addressing political consequences of discrimination and violence, the Feminist Art Revolution radically transformed the art and culture of our times.

Status Quo? The Unfinished Business of Feminism in Canada

Juxtaposing scenes from the 1967 Royal Commission on the Status of Women with the 2nd Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Gathering in 2011 in Winnipeg, organized by the rebELLEs movement, the film explores the progress made on concerns raised 45 years ago: universal childcare, violence against women, and abortion access.

Feminism WTF

An international topic documentary on feminism and gender equality. The film reflects on current debates and analyses the potential of intersectional feminism to profoundly change our future societies.

Repense o Elogio

A documentary that proposes a conversation about the way children are praised. While girls are often praised solely for their appearance, boys can receive compliments by highlighting their skills. "Rethink the Praise" reflects on the power of words and culture that has brought an imbalance in the way we commend our boys and girls.

Quatro em Linha

Plot unavailable

Yours in Sisterhood

What might be revealed in the process of inviting strangers to act out and respond to 1970s feminism forty years later? Between 2015 and 2017, hundreds of strangers in communities all over the US were invited to read aloud and respond to letters from the 70s sent to the editor of Ms. Magazine–the first mainstream feminist magazine in the US. The intimate, provocative, and sometimes heartbreaking conversations that emerge from these spontaneous performances make us think critically about the past, present, and future of feminism.

British Sounds

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.

Feminists: What Were They Thinking?

In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

Teaches of Peaches

Peaches - artist, feminist, rock star. She has been challenging gender stereotypes for over 20 years and is on par with the icons of the pop and rock world. With exclusive private archive material and current footage of preparations and concerts of her 2022 jubilee tour “20 Years of Teaches of Peaches”, we learn how the Canadian Merrill Nisker became the internationally celebrated musician and electro-clash icon Peaches.

We Weren't Given Anything for Free

Annita Malavasi was just 22 when the Germans occupied Italy, their former allies, in 1943. As a partisan in the Italian resistance named “Laila”, she moved throughout the Apennines with and between fighting units, delivering information, transporting weapons, and taking part in battles. She spent over a year in the Apennines, fighting against the German occupation. At the same time, she had to assert herself against the men of the mountain villages. By the end of the war, Laila had risen among the ranks to become one of the few female commanders in the Italian resistance. This film chronicles the story of a lifelong struggle for emancipation that began with the battle for Italy’s liberation from fascism. Laila and her two comrades, Gina “Sonia” Moncigoli and Pierina “Iva” Bonilauri talk about their time in the Resistenza and what it meant to them and many other women.

The Feminist Library

The Feminist Library: A Short Film was made in support of the Save the Feminist Library Campaign, documenting a crucial moment in the library's herstory as it fights for its very survival. Shortlisted for the Women's History Network Community Prize, the film revisits the story of the library's inception and emphasises why feminism remains essential today.

I'm Not Speak English

With analog and digital material collected during her stay on a "Work Trip" taking care of children in an American kindergarten as a migrant. I'm not speak English proposes —as a visual autobiography— to make visible a phantasmagorical light as a metaphor for the sudaca's bodies that work in invisible care task. Migrant bodies who bear as an imperceptible force the North American Nation.

Revolution, Riot Grrrl Style

Today, we see a new style of feminism springing up everywhere - young, provocative and radical. To get their message across, these women have decided to rely on rock music! While the Pussy Riot shock Russia and fascinate the West, the concerts of Peaches or Grimes are sold out, while artists such as Kathleen Hanna make their comeback to remind us that it all began in 1990 in some backwater of the United States. The RIOT GRRRLS revolutionized rock and inspired entire generations of young artists around the world. This film will explore today s feminist scene while revisiting the little known history of this revolution that shook the early 90s.

The End of Men

It used be that everyone knew what it meant to be a man. A man was rugged and reliable and got the job done. But then came the worst recession in 80 years. So what happens now that the job is gone? The End of Men is a compelling new documentary that takes a profound look at how men are coping with the evolving role of masculinity in today's world, where the old rules no longer apply.