Laurence Deonna Free

Not For Sale: Feminism and Art in the USA during the 1970s

“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.

Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin's expose on the pornography industry.

The film was originally conceived as a portrait of Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, the well-known Egyptian doctor, writer, and women’s rights activist. But the director was disappointed by the encounter with the woman who had been her great role model. Instead, she set out to discover what life means to Egyptian women by visiting her female relatives. Her mother, aunts, and neighbors talk about life as a married woman, about the traditional clitoridectomy of girls, about love and sexuality. The result is a very impressive and extremely personal film.

An insight into the novelist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, who was also a political activist and feminist.

Kristina, a self-named Hungarian female lion tamer, arrives in New York to become a dance choreographer. Kristina, now a middle-class NYC artist concerned about the environment, has a sailor lover named Raoul. The film, a collage work, an essay film, a fictional narrative and a documentary all rolled into one, is one of the most important independent American feminists films made during the 1970's.

In the 1970s, Françoise d'Eaubonne stood out in the French intellectual landscape. At 50, she has already won several literary prizes and published around forty novels and essays, but is resuming her militant fight with renewed vigor. She is the first to define ecofeminism, denouncing the common oppression of women and the planet as a consequence of patriarchy. She participated in the actions of the MLF (Women's Liberation Movement), in the creation of the FHAR (Homosexual Revolutionary Action Front) and theorized counter-violence, going so far as to sabotage the construction site of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant. This film presents unpublished documents for the first time. Drawing freely from the manuscripts and photographic archives that she bequeathed to the Memory Institute for Contemporary Publishing, her relatives and researchers, historians and publishers comment on the resonance of her feminist and ecological heritage.

Dancing For Change is a story about secular and socialist women of the Islamic world, their ideals, activism, and visions for a better world. It focuses on six Kurdish Iranian women from three different generations. These women live with their male comrades in a mountain camp.

Drag Queens and their cabaret shows are well-known in France, but Drag Kings still remain very much on the sidelines. Chriss Lag traveled all over France and met 22 Kings to bring them front and center.

A painter, a naked woman, and a camera. In this triple constellation we explore the power of the gaze and the roles it imposes on us. An artist's studio turns into the setting for questions about how we look at and perceive women. The naked skin of the model becomes the canvas for an audiovisual exploration of the ways in which seeing and being seen anchors us in our body. And how this body shapes our experience of the world and our role in it.

In 2016, after the hate-fuelled murder of a woman in Gangnam, young feminists gathered to talk about their experiences, which led to the ‘tsunami’ of the feminist movement reawakening in Korean society. This tsunami included street protests against misogynistic hate crimes, political campaigning in the upcoming presidential elections, protests against sexism and sexual violence in everyday life, and the ‘black’ protests calling for the abolition of the anti-abortion law. The Fearless And Vulnerable focuses on the activities and members of the Feminist Party (known in Korean as “Femidangdang”), a feminist group that was part of this tsunami wave. The pleasure and sincerity with which they conduct their activities are compounded with their courage in the face of conflict, and the sense of fear that permeates the community. The film shows Femidangdang meetings as well as the daily lives and thoughts of members during their activities post-2016.

In the 1950s, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal - who were known by their codename "The Butterflies" - created an underground resistance movement against Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. On November 25, 1960, Trujillo had all three sisters assassinated. The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into national heroines and symbols of feminist resistance. The documentary interweaves interviews with over forty witnesses to the story, including the Mirabal family friends, colleagues, co-revolutionaries, teachers, and most importantly, their surviving sister, Dedé, along with dramatic reenactments and archival footage.

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Mujeres olvidadas

A docu-drama shot in 1970, but not completed until 1973, the film sought to encapsulate in an experimental form issues that were under discussion within the Women’s Liberation Movement at this time and to thus contribute to action for change. In its numerous community screenings, active debate was encouraged as part of the viewing experience.

“Touch one, touch us all” is a slogan of the women who took over the streets in Brazil and organized themselves in social networks to face male chauvinist and conservatism. Through testimonies of women who have been subjected to violence, the documentary reveals that, despite legal achievements, the woman still remains vulnerable. Amongst other deponents are Maria da Penha, Joanna Maranhão, Luíza Brunet, and Clara Averbuck.

“Olive” is a short documentary that follows Olive Hagemeier, an energetic woman, on her daily routine of salvaging, repackaging and redistributing food, and occasional other types of “waste”, across Atlanta, GA. Presented in a quiet observational style, this film is both a character study of a committed and enigmatic volunteer, as well as an ethnographic work that places the audience in the heart of a decentralized, volunteer-run mutual aid network in a “post-COVID” American city.

Feito por Elas - O Rock Feminino e Feminista da Cidade de São Paulo

And urban planner's journey to making the impossible possible.

Six professionals in the audiovisual field share their experiences through a visual and sound sensory journey