'Figure I' uses a feminist perspective to frame and deconstruct patriarchal techniques of control. This film asks: how was a patriarchal gaze construct-ed, and how has it come to effect biological processes? How have specific tools (like Dürer's Grid) come to shape our technological present and possible futures? Are modern Western scientif-ic/mathematic/technological/medical structures rooted in extractive patriarchal philosophies? 'Figure 1' is composed of re-drawn illustrations of allegorical art historical paintings and etchings, alongside archival footage, Obstetric photography, and rotoscoped animation.
The Post(?) Feminist Dissonance Project uses a quote by Kathleen Hanna as a prompt, a voicemail box as an interviewing device, found footage as a tool, and text as a character. it is a study in the cacophony of the inner life tuned against the perception of reality. i made this piece to see if i was alone, and i discovered that for better or for worse, i am not. this is above all about the process, not the resolution.
Les Champs de la colère
"I especially hope to inspire young women, because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman." Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women. Three of Kilgallen's heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley (source: Art21).
When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps easily through history to revisit that day in August 1969, when the entire village of Old Massett gathered to celebrate the event that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit.
In America women can go to jail for their husbands’ crimes, men are allowed to marry ten-year-olds, and abortions in some states are illegal, even in cases of rape. Documentary filmmaker Brice Lambert journeys through the American South and meets women who are at the receiving end of the attack on women’s rights since Donald Trump’s return to power.
Exploration of the way of life of the Q’eros Indians of Peru, who have lived in the Andes for more than 3,000 years.
Since the cult success of Merci Patron!, activist/journalist/filmmaker François Ruffin has become an MP. Here, he attempts to table a law aimed at upholding the rights of what in Quebec are known as caregivers, and shows us in passing how a law whose need seems patently obvious is put together, debated, voted on and . . . dies on the battleground of French politics. A stirring documentary about social injustice that somehow manages to make us bust a gut laughing as we rage with indignation. And also cry at the beauty of it all, thanks to the director’s humanist sensibility and a deft play between reality and fiction.
In 1975, soon after the end of the Vietnam War, Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che fled the country on a small boat. After nine days at sea, they docked in the Philippines, where they were utilized as background extras for “Apocalypse Now.”
Jingle Chordbook Magazine, first published in 1970, promptly taught a generation of Filipinos to play the guitar. Its story also explores how a small independent publication survived the weight of its time – the dark Martial Law years – and how it inspired the Filipino youth to think for themselves and wield the guitar like a weapon. The documentary “Jingle Lang Ang Pahina” tells the story of Jingle, its ragtag crew, and its loyal fans in a rambling, multi-layered narrative told in different voices and perspectives by the writers, artists, fans, collectors, musicians, freaks.
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
A stunning and intimate portrait of the Arhuaco indigenous community in Colombia. In 1990, in a celebrated BBC documentary, the Arhuaco made contact with the outside world to warn industrialized societies of the potentially catastrophic future facing the planet if we don’t change our ways. Now, three decades later, with the advances of audio/visual technology, we go back to the Snowy Peaks of Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria to illuminate their ethos against the backdrop of an increasingly fragile world.
This documentary features sexologist and writer Betty Dodson as she assembles a group of women to discuss the appearance and purpose of female genitalia. The discussion is followed by some group self-stimulation exercises and full-body massages.
In the north of the Philippines lies the area of Banaue, known for its rice cultivation. Roger lives here in a small village. Roger is thirteen and has five brothers and sisters. As the oldest, he is responsible for the daily firewood. To get this, Roger sets off into the mountains every other day. At seven in the morning, they start. A truck takes Roger and his four friends out into the steep, forested slopes above the rice terraces. With them on the back of the truck are the 'scooters', homemade wooden scooters with which the firewood is driven down to the valley. Once they reach the top, they cut down smaller logs, chop them up and pack their scooters full of them. After this strenuous work, the great fun begins. On bumpy paths and at breakneck speed, they make their way back to the village. Races and tricks are part of the fun, of course.
Documentary about the history of Philippine cinema.
Cuviví is the Ecuadorean indigenous name for the upland sandpiper, a wading bird that has special significance for the communities living around the Ozogoche lakes in the middle of the Andes. Each year, these birds migrate south from North America. Around September they pass the Ozogoche lakes, where large numbers then “commit suicide,” plunging from great heights into the ice-cold water. A girl lives near the lake. Her uncle lives in the US, and she might be heading there herself. In the meantime, she awaits the arrival of the cuvivís, few of which have appeared in recent years. The lakes are drying up.
Meet Duewand Collier Jr.-Male, 68 years old, American Citizen, a child conceived in the backdrop of the Philippines-American Mutual Defense Treaty, born and raised with Catholic guilt. He has made peace with his past and now tells his story-a story of love.
The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.
Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
Gory real-life footage of blood and guts on the German Autobahn, drug smugglers getting blown away, a parachutist landing in a crocodile pit, torture and murder in El Salvador, a PCP addict getting stoned, a videotaped rape/murder, a car thief getting ripped apart by two junkyard dogs, and much more.