Women Composers

Shut Up and Sing is a documentary about the country band from Texas called the Dixie Chicks and how one tiny comment against President Bush dropped their number one hit off the charts and caused fans to hate them, destroy their CD’s, and protest at their concerts. A film about freedom of speech gone out of control and the three girls lives that were forever changed by a small anti-Bush comment

On the evening of April 30, 1971, a standing room only audience of local literati and feminists packed New York City’s Town Hall to watch Norman Mailer, who had just written “The Prisoner of Sex,” grapple with a panel of passionate feminists. The subject was Women’s Liberation, an issue on which Mailer seemed like the devil’s own advocate.

Breaking a centuries-old taboo, Ava stands as the first woman in Iran to master the male-dominated craft of carpentry. Within the grit and clamor of the workshop, she confronts a society that deems her presence forbidden. This observational documentary captures her daily battle against physical hardships and social judgment.

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.

Janette Bertrand, 96, is at the time of the balance sheets. Where are the women, where is the fight for gender equality? An hour of History with a capital H and Love with a capital A, to not forget anything and, above all, never stop moving forward.

Widerstandsmomente (Moments of Resistance) carries voices, writings, and objects from the anti-Nazi resistance into the present. Politically engaged women of today respond to historical resistance and make links to current events. A line is drawn from what was before and what is today to what might be: a society based on solidarity without discrimination or exclusion.

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.

Entre nos mains (In our hands)

Two actresses take us through a series of 'raps' and sketches about what it means to be beautiful and black.

An expository and poetic documentary that invites thinkers and artists from different areas to analyze the construction of images that affect the female body in issues that cross genders.

Juno Award-winning musician Kinnie Starr is on a quest to find out why only 5% of music producers are women even though many of the most bankable pop stars are female. What does it take for a woman to make it in music?

The funeral procession of suffragette Emily Davison - fatally injured at the Epsom Derby - passes through London to her final resting place in Morpeth.

Their documentary is the result of an ethnographic audiovisual research. How to research the theme woman and all the themes that surround it, respecting the place of speech of each one? Based on an interview with eighteen women cultural makers from the interior of São Paulo, we open the way to listening and dialogue on macro-themes permeated by their trajectories. The stories are theirs, but they're ours. Expand the debate about being a woman, about feminism and about our pains and delights, about our contradictions and dreams. The documentary is then a research, an open process of listening, reinterpreting and giving voice to them.

The short film is based on an investigation by Dino Buzzati. It tells the story of Melinda, a mountain girl turned into a witch by her environment and circumstances. In September 1965, Buzzati travelled to Abruzzo (near Teramo, at the foot of the Gran Sasso) on behalf of the newspaper Corriere della Sera, seeking stories for his investigative series titled "I misteri d'Italia" (The Mysteries of Italy). There, he gathered the story of Melinda, a real-life woman (who died in 1962 at the age of 93) regarded by the local community as the last true Abruzzese witch. Buzzati described Melinda not as an evil being, but as a woman victimized by fate and superstition. While Buzzati was fascinated by the magical and mysterious aspects of her tale, Lù Leone reinterpreted the same story in 1976 through a political and feminist lens.

This video documentary centers on the questions of civil liberties and cultural differences in a society beginning to open as one woman searches for her own ethnic roots, identity and family history in Ukraine. Issues of human rights, anti-Semitism, homophobia, feminism and a divided and economically-depressed country are encountered as Barbara Hammer, a feminist activist and pioneer of lesbian cinema, return to a “homeland” full of struggling as people search for a new post-glasnost identity.

A chronicle of Cyndi Lauper's meteoric ascent to stardom and her profound impact on generations through her music, ever-evolving punk style, unwavering feminism and tireless advocacy. This documentary takes the audience on an engaging exploration of a renowned and pioneering artist who has left a remarkable legacy with her art.

'Trailblazers in Habits' is an intimate portrait of a group of American Catholic nuns, the Maryknoll Sisters, who have accompanied the disenfranchised in their struggle for social justice. By turns tragic and joyous, yet always inspirational, this insightful documentary is a revealing portrait of these courageous women. A moving and absorbing chronicle that spans 100 years and several continents, the film celebrates the intelligence and tenacity; the love, compassion and generosity of these early feminists.

From birth, women are condemned. We are born into a society that treats us as second-class citizens. They impose toys, expectations, even colors on us. A mold we are forced to fit into. A world where men and society as a whole see our bodies as objects to desire. Where the blood that flows from our vaginas—the only blood not born from violence—is the one most looked upon with disgust and shame. This is a poetic essay on the lived experiences of women, a statement we make against all the bullshit.

Interspersed with documentation of dancer Juliana Carneiro da Cunha’s "Possession" performance, which draws from Christian mysticism, in the filmmaker’s words this experimental short is about “the psychic suffering of women in a patriarchal society”. It takes the viewer on a disorienting journey—with abrupt cuts in sound and image—through the Catholic Church, repressed sexuality, racial violence perpetrated by white women, maternal fatigue, male chauvinism and drug addiction…

Sexual violence against women is a very effective weapon in modern warfare: instills fear and spreads the seed of the victorious side, an outrageous method that is useful to exterminate the defeated side by other means. This use of women, both their bodies and their minds, as a battleground, was crucial for international criminal tribunals to begin to judge rape as a crime against humanity.