The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause

Davina was 44 and felt like she was losing it - hot flushes, depression, mental fog. Now she tells her menopause story, busting midlife taboos from sex to hormone treatment.

Virtually every woman who enters menopause has questions about what’s happening to her body and how to effectively deal with the changes. The broad availability of medicines, remedies and even hormones even conveys the concept that menopause as a curable “deficiency disorder”. This documentary takes a look at the scientific and medical contexts of menopause as well as the latest findings in international research. Are artificial hormones medically necessary or a seductive, supposed fountain of youth? Do they truly assist in alleviating the suffering of women, or are they lifestyle drugs reflecting a zeitgeist in which ageing is no longer acceptable and older people are seen as “flawed”? A visual and provoking science documentary about the hot time of menopause that also takes a look at whether and how the hormones in men likewise go crazy.

Exploring the subject of menopause in Ireland, seeking to broaden the conversation around a subject often considered taboo and finding out how real women experience this life event which affects half the population.

Ménopositive

A documentary about hot flashes, organ descent, bladder weakness, cellulite? Sounds like a horror movie, doesn't it? But what if it's quite the opposite, and instead opens the way to a profound questioning of our identity as women, of what we wish to experience and never experience again? Through the eyes of 12 women, Menopauses explores this time of life through stories told with lucidity and humor, which ultimately raise a broader question: until what age does society really consider us to be women?

A positive look at menopause. While different women confide how they experienced this natural and important passage in their lives, a female character tames her new environment and welcomes new ways of perceiving and projecting her femininity.

From a high school art class to a local radio station, the day-to-day lives of several women coalesce into a poetic documentation of women’s presence and physicality across everyday spaces.

Rosemarie Blank made this film, which focuses on women aged around fifty, in collaboration with the organisation VIDO (Dutch: Vrouwen in de Overgang/Women in the Menopause). An all but invisible group of housewives who have spent their lives putting themselves last to ensure that their husbands and children can reach their full potential.

You-Turn is a short documentary that follows three menopausal women as they embark on a journey of reconnection and self-acceptance. After the damage that menopause has caused to their body image, this film explores the proces of speaking your truth, recognizing it’s worth, and being proud of it.

Menopause turns a hot flashin' wallflower into a super-hot superhero.

When her only daughter goes off to university, an empty nest mother gets stuck taking care of her daughter's heart-broken ex-boyfriend, who she can't stand.

An unlikely basketball team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former high school champs, challenge the current high school girls’ state champs to raise money for breast cancer prevention. Sparks fly as the women go to comic extremes to prove themselves on and off the court, become a national media sensation, and gain a new lease on life.

Unabashed comedian Lynne Koplitz offers a woman's take on being crazy, the benefits of childlessness and the three things all men really want.

Se-eun is a janitor who is always the first to arrive at the pool where she works. One day, she runs into an old friend who is now a swimming instructor.

Jungok, a housewife who suffers from menopausal symptoms after her period stops, sells her unused sanitary pads on an online trading platform. On the day of the trade, she meets a young girl.

CONFESSIONS OF A MENOPAUSAL FEMME FATALE is a fearless stand-up storytelling concert film in which Shakoor uses raw honesty, wit, music, and personal narrative to share her 12-year journey through menopause—a transformative experience that reshaped her identity as a woman, mother, artist, and human being. Framed around a return trip to Hawaii nearly 40 years after she once called it home, the story unfolds when a panic attack triggers deep introspection, forcing Shakoor to confront unresolved struggles, including addiction, postpartum depression, loss, and self-reinvention. Through wit, song, and unflinching truth, Shakoor breaks the silence surrounding menopause in a powerful performance that challenges stigma, invites laughter, and inspires radical self-acceptance.

In American Sign Language (ASL) with subtitles available in English, Spanish and Canadian French. This powerful documentary uses real life experiences from Deaf people of varied social, racial, and educational boundaries showing how this form of oppression does lasting and harmful damage. Bonus materials include directors' comments from Ben Bahan and H-Dirksen Bauman and additional scences. Teachers: This film is a wonderful tool for beginning ASL students, as an introduction to a side of Deaf culture that cannot be found in any textbook.

It is a typical day in the life of actor Kazuki Shimizu when a gun is found inside his bag, leading to all sorts of trouble for him. A Day of One Hero is a direct-to-video film starring Kazuki Shimizu as himself in a mockumentary of his acting career as Don "Doc" Dogoier in the Super Sentai series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. The film also features cameo appearances by Tokusatsu veteran actors Yoshio Yamaguchi and Nao Nagasawa.

A year in the life of an extraordinary village hidden away in the French countryside.

Explores the nature of creativity and collaboration on the making of this very unique story in an earnest and unexpectedly touching manner.