Macho
Director: Lucinda Broadbent
Year:2000
Subject: Documentary
Running Time: 26 minutes
Distributor:
Comments: Macho, a film by Lucinda Broadbent, provides an in-depth
profile of Men Against Violence and its ground-breaking work towards
eliminating attitudes of male chauvinism (known as machismo in
Spanish) that have perpetuated violent acts against women in Nicaragua and
Latin America. The film strongly demonstrates that despite living in one of the
most destitute countries in Latin America, this group has succeeded in
providing a model that is used by men worldwide to discuss issues of violence
and advocate for the rights of women. Macho offers a rare glimpse at
the methods used by Men Against Violence to discuss the abuse of power and the
damage it causes families and communities. It also is a powerful film that
challenges assumptions about machismo and its continued application to
Latino culture. In the end, Macho demonstrates that violence against
women and sexual abuse is a worldwide epidemic that needs to be addressed by
all men in every country.
Made in India
Director: Patricia Plattner
Year: 1999
Subject: Documentary
Running Time: 55 minutes
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Comments: This powerful documentary is a portrait of SEWA, the now-famous
women's organization in India that holds to the simple yet radical belief that
poor women need organizing, not welfare. SEWA, or the Self-Employed Women's
Association, corresponds to the Indian word sewa, meaning service. Based in the
western Indian city of Ahmedabad, a dusty old textile town on the edge of the
Gujarati desert, SEWA is at its core a trade union for the self-employed. It
offers union membership to the illiterate women who sell vegetables for 50
cents a day in the city markets, or who pick up paper scraps for recycling from
the streets--jobs that most Indian men don't consider real work. Inspired by
the political, economic and moral model advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, SEWA has
grown since its founding to a membership of more than 217,000 and its bank now
has 61,000 members, assets of $4 million and customers who walk in each day to
deposit a dollar or take out 60 cents. Following the lives of six women
involved in the organization, including Ela R. Bhat, its visionary founder,
Plattner's documentary is an important look at the power of grassroots global
feminism.
Made in Thailand
Director: Eve-Laure Moros and Linzy Emery
Year 1999
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 33 minutes
Distributor Women Make Movies
Comments: In Thailand, women make up 90 percent of the labor force
responsible for garments and toys for export by multinational corporations.
This powerful, revealing documentary about women factory workers and their
struggle to organize unions exposes the human cost behind the production of
everyday items that reach our shores. Probing the profound impact of the New
World Order on the populations that provide the global economy with cheap
labor, Made in Thailand also profiles women newly empowered by their
campaign for human and worker's rights. Several of these women are survivors of
the 1993 Kader Toy Factory fire, one of the worst industrial fires in history.
Today they are highly effective leaders in the grass-roots movement mobilizing
workers in their recently industrialized country.
The Man Who Drove With Mandela
Director Greta Schiller
Year 1998
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 54 minutes
Distributor The Cinema Guild
Comments Blending dramatic recreations with archival footage, home movies
and contemporary interviews, this film shares an unusual chapter from South
African history. Cecil Williams, a leading Johannesburg theater director and
committed freedom fighter, helped Nelson Mandela travel incognito across the
country in the early '60s so he could organize the armed rebellion against the
apartheid regime. Disguised as the chauffeur of an elegant, impeccably dressed
white man, Mandela was able to avoid suspicion as he moved about. Williams, a
gay man who understood the nature of oppression, was an unknown hero to the
freedom movement. This documentary from Greta Schiller (Before Stonewall, Paris
Was a Woman) won Best Documentary honors at the Berlin International Film
Festival. Corin Redgrave plays Williams in the dramatic portions of the
film.
Maedchen in Uniform
Director Leontine Sagan
Year 1931
Subject Feature Film
Language German with English sub
Running Time 90 minutes
Distributor Janus Films
Comments: Today considered on of the masterpieces of German cinemas,
Maedchen in Uniform was originally banned in Germany and the U.S. Set in a
strict boarding school, the tale of a lonely girl's crush on a female teacher
proved too sensual for some, and its condemnation of Facist authoritanianism
outraged the Nazis. With Eleanor Roosevelt's help, the U.S. ban was lifted, and
the film was later named best film of the year by the New York press. Brilliant
acting and direction sensitively depict the schoolgirl's yearnings in their
frenzied whispers, hysterical lampoons of rigid teachers, and open adoration of
one sympathetic teacher. Though the original negative was destroyed during the
war, the film was restored from rediscovered prints years later. An early
feminist classic, this all-female production is a tender portrayal of female
bonding and love.
The Maids
Director Muriel Jackson
Year 1985
Running Time 28 mins
Distributor Women Make Movies
Comments
Domestic service has long been branded as demeaning work: it involves long
hours, menial toil and low pay. Historically, and not coincidentally, it has
been one of the only occupations open to African American women in this
country. As African American women have begun to move away from domestic labor
into other jobs, white-owned entrepreneurial maid services employing primarily
white women have arisen. This intriguing and articulate documentary looks at
the history of domestic work since slavery and the ambivalence felt by African
American women towards it. Offering a sophisticated analysis of the racial and
sexual division of labor in this country, The Maids! is an excellent resource
for women's, African American and labor studies.
Married to the Mob
Director Jonathan Demme
Year 1989
Subject Feature (Comedy)
Artists Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell
Language English
DistributorOrion Home Video
Comments
Mafia princess Angela DeMarco wants out. Everything she owns is either
stolen or permanently borrowed Her 7-year-old son is running petty cons in the
backyard. And her husband, hitman Frank "The Cucumber" DeMarco is taking bubble
baths with the boss's bimbo - an activity Tony "The Tiger" Russo pulls the plug
on permanently. With Frank dead, Angela decides it's time to divorce the mob
and start a new life. But what she doesn't realize is once you're married to
the mob, it's until death do you part, usually yours.
Martha & Ethel
Director Jyll Johnstone
Year 1995
Running Time 80 minutes
Distributor Columbia Tristar Home Video
Comments
Martha & Ethel is the story of two American families, and two very
different women who raised them. Told through riveting interviews, vintage
photographs, home movies and newsreel footage, Martha & Ethel chronicles
the lives of two nannies and the upper-class families they served from the
1940's to the present. Stern Martha, a German immigrant, ruled by fear and
intimidation. Ethel, a fun-loving Southerner, raised "her" children with
gentle, unconditional love. Together, the nannies and their families represent
the full spectrum of American life: black and white, rich and poor, native and
immigrant. "Ambitious and emotionally deep...It deftly becomes a history of
social change over 40 years and a meditation on motherhood and family. Martha
and Ethel themselves are such rich screen presences."
Ma Vie en Rose
Director Alan Berliner
Year 1997
Subject Feature
Language English
Running Time 89 minutes
DistributorColumbia Home Video
Comments
Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year old certainty he believes he
was meant to be a girl and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where
he expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation, and guilt as
the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every
innocent lace and bauble. As suburban prejudices close around them, family
loves and loyalties are tested in the ever-escalating dramatic turns of Alain
Berliner's critically acclaimed first feature.
Men and Women In A Time of Change
Director --
Year 2000
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 56 minutes
Distributor: U.S. Committee for the United Nations Population Fund
Comments: This film documents gender relations throughout the world, turning
especially to reproductive and population control issues.
Miguel Michelle
Director Gil Portes
Year 1998
Subject Feature Film
Language In Tagalog with English Subtitles
Running Time 106 minutes
Distributor World Artists Home Video
Comments A Filipino family sends their son off to America, with the hope
that he will make a lot of money and perhaps find a girl to marry. To their
shock, he returns home not with, but as a girl, having undergone a sex change
operation in the states. Now, the friends and family of Miguel have to
reexamine their values completely if they are ever going to accept the
glamorous Michelle. "Lively...a bright, humanist plea for tolerance for the
transgendered, especially those with great wardrobes...sweet...entertaining"
(Godfrey Cheshire, Variety).
Mi Vida Loca: My Crazy Life
Director Allison Anders
Year 1993
Running Time 100 minutes
Distributor: HBO Home Video
Comments
The streets are alive in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Alive with passion and
anger, with casual moments of love and sudden acts of violence. Gang members
Sad Girl and Mousie, once best friends, are now enemies as they have both
become pregnant by the same man, Ernesto, a local drug dealer. But when Ernesto
is murdered by a rival gang-leader, the balance of power on the street brutally
changes and it's time to take sides. As the Echo Park boys deal with Ernesto's
murder by searching for revenge, the Echo Park girls arm themselves for another
kind of struggle--the struggle to survive.
A Midwife's Tale
Director Laurie Kahn-Leavitt
Year 1997
Running Time 88 minutes
Distributor PBS Video
Comments
Experience 18th century American life through the remarkable story of
midwife and healer Martha Ballard. A mix of drama and documentary, the film is
based on historian Laurel Ulrich's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which
chronicles Ballard's life using diary entries spanning 27 years. The seemingly
mundane details of Ballard's experiences reveal the intense social and
political turmoil of a new nation-profound social change, deadly disease,
religious conflict, and domestic violence. A Midwife's Tale unfolds in a small
Maine town during the turbulent decades following the American Revolution.
Miranda; Bananas is my Business: Carmen Miranda
Director Helena Solberg
Year 1996
Subject Documentary
Language: English and Portuguese w/ English subtitles
Running Time 90 minutes
Distributor: Fox Lorber Home Video
Comments: The intimate saga of the star who captured the world's heart and
imagination. The film reveals the lasting image of Latin American women Carmen
Miranda created and serves as a celebration of her glorious talents. Using
archival footage, film fragments, interviews and dramatic re-enactments,
acclaimed director Helena Solberg goes behind-the-scenes to convey the true
life story of the "Brazilian Bombshell."
Miss America
Director: American Experience
Year: 2002
Subject: Documentary
Running Time: 96 minutes
Distributor: WGBH Boston
Comments: Miss America tracks the contest from its inception in
1921 as an exuberant local seaside pageant to its heyday as one of the most
popular and anticipated events in the country's cultural calendar. Among the
many stories it uncovers are those of Vanessa Williams and her predecessor,
Bess Meyerson, a Jew, who was crowned Miss America in 1945, the same year the
Allies won World War II. It paints a vivid picture of the changing ambitions of
the contestants and it describes how the pageant became the target of the first
national protest by the women's rights movement. As the film unfolds, it
becomes clear that the Miss America contest isn't just the country's oldest
beauty contest. It is a powerful cultural institution that over the course of
the century has come to reveal much about a changing nation -- the increasing
power of the image, the rise in commercialism, the complexity of sexual
politics, the important role of big business and the emotional resonance of
small towns. It is, we learn, about winners and losers, getting ahead, being
included and being left out. Beyond the symbolism lies a human story -- at once
moving, inspiring, infuriating, funny and poignant. Using intimate interviews
with former contestants, archival footage and photographs, the film reveals why
some women took part in the fledgling event and why others briefly shut it
down. It describes how the pageant became a battleground for the country's most
conservative and progressive elements and a barometer for the changing position
of women in society. It reveals how for women in the 1920s the pageant was an
avenue to movie stardom and for women in the 1950s it paved the way to academic
success. Miss America intercuts period film with contemporary footage of the
1999 and 2000 pageants that captures the glamour and excitement of the event,
both on stage and in the wings. The documentary reinforces the pageant's
continuing hold on the imagination of the American public.
Miss Firecracker
Director Thomas Schlamme
Year 1989
Subject Feature (Comedy)
Artists Holly Hunter, Tim Robbins, Mary Steenburgen, Scott Gelnn, Alfre
Woodard
Screenplay Beth Henley
Language English
Running Time 102 minutes
Distributor HBO Video
Comments: Being an orphan, Carnelle never really felt at home in Yazoo City,
but now her time had come. Hilarious comedy ensues when this small town girl
with big time dreams enters the local beauty competition to be crowned Miss
Firecracker. Joining Carnelle, and supporting her all of the way (some of the
time), there's Cousin Elain, southern belle and former Miss Firecracker; Cousin
Delmount, back from a newvous breakdown to sell the family home; Popeye, local
seamstress who learned her trade making clothes for bullfrogs; and Mac Sam,
carnival worker and Carnelle's occasional beau. All these and many more Yazoo
City citizens make this Miss Firecracker contest the one you won't want to
miss. It's Carnelle's chance to shine.
Miss Mary
Director Maria Luisa Bemberg
Year 1991
Artist Julie Christie
Language English
Running Time 100 minutes
Comments: Between pre-war Buenos Aires and the turbulence of Peron's
Argentina are remembrances of things past. Amid the jarring war cries of the
present and between the innocence and passions lies a story of love and family
honor...and the woman that tore them apart. This is the story of Miss Mary, the
cultures English governess whose only crime was compassion, and of the wealthy
family that lives and dies by their inflated sense of tradition. And of the
broad political events and intimate personal dramas that will carve their
destinies.
Morrison; Toni Morrison
Subject Documentary
Running Time 29 minutes
Comments: This program introduces one of the greatest contemporary American
authors; winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, "a literary Moses
stripping away the idols of whiteness and blackness that have prevented blacks
form knowing themselves." Readings from Beloved and Jazz show how she returns
to the pain of slavery and segregation to restore wholeness to the black
psyche. "The past," Morrison says, "is more infinite than the future...It's
avoiding it, deceiving ourselves about it, that paralyzes growth."
Mrs. Dalloway
Director Marleen Gorris
Year 1997
Subject Feature Film
Language English
Running Time 97 minutes
Distributor Fox Lorber Films
Comments: From the director of Academy-Award winning Antonia's Line
comes Mrs. Dalloway, the captivating and romantic story based on the
critically-acclaimed Virginia Woolf novel of the same name. It's a lovely
summer day and Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for an elaborate party. During
the day of her party, she remembers another summer past, when she was a
beautiful, vivacious, and much-courted young woman. Her preparations are
interrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a former suitor from that
long-ago summer a once dashing man she thought she would marry but ultimately
rejected. As the day of the party unfolds, Mrs. Dalloway's life also becomes
strangely intertwined with a young man she never meets but whose tragic fate
strikes a chord of truth deep in her soul that she cannot deny.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Director Alan Rudolph
Year 1984
Subject Feature Film
Language English
Running Time 124 minutes
Distributor New Line Home Video
Comments Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a woman ahead of her time.
A brilliant writer with a razor-sharp tongue, she sits at the center of the
famous round table of the Algonquin Hotel. Here, the brightest lights of the
literary world swap legendary stories that keep all of Broadway and Hollywood
on their toes. Mrs. Parker also shares a professional but intimate relationship
with comic genius Robert Benchley, but when she meets Charlie MacArthur, she
falls hopelessly in love, a condition even literary genius can't seem to
cure.
Morrison; Toni Morrison: A Writer's Work
Year 1994
Subject Documentary
Running Time 60 minutes
Comments: Toni Morrison exists in two worlds: the visible world, bustling
around her, and the world of her novels, whose characters tell about an
interior reality hidden from the eyes of strangers. In her work, Nobel Prize
winner Toni Morrison has transported millions of readers into the experience of
being black in America and confronting the realities of race. In this program
with Bill Moyers, Morrison discusses the characters in her work, the people in
her life, the power of love, and how the invented world of fiction connects to
life.
Morrison, Toni
Running Time: 29 minutes
Distributor: Films for the Humanities & Sciences
Comments: This program introduces one of the greatest contemporary American
authors; winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, "a literary Moses
stripping away the idols of whiteness and blackness that have prevented blacks
form knowing themselves." Readings from Beloved and Jazz show
how she returns to the pain of slavery and segregation to restore wholeness to
the black psyche. "The past," Morrison says, "is more infinite than the
future...It's avoiding it, deceiving ourselves about it, that paralyzes
growth."
Mukherjee; Bharati Mukherjee: Conquering America
Subject Documentary
Running Time 30 minutes
Distributor: Films for the Humanities and Sciences
Comments: Bharati Mukherjee writes vivid, sensual, and troubling stories
about America's newest immigrants, Asians like herself. Mukherjee's early
novels spoke from India, the old world she left behind to marry an American.
Upon arriving in America she set out to capture the New World experiences of
Asian immigrants. "We've come to America," she says, "in a way, to take over.
To help build a new culture." With Bill Moyers.
Museum of Modern Art. Three Women Artists.
Studio Kulter Video
Year 2000
Running Time 60 minutes
Distributor CD universe
Comments: The accomplishments of three seminal women of the arts are
chronicled here. First up is Anna Sokolow, one of the century's greatest
choreographers, who combined humanistic ideals with dance. Next is Alice Neel,
a painter who chronicles various stages of her life in her work. Lastly, we get
an intimate portrait of Muriel Ruckhauser, a New York poet whose subject matter
deals with racism, sexism, and various wars.
Museum of Modern Art. Works By Women: From the Heart.
Studio Kulter Video
Year 2000
Running Time 60 minutes
Distributor CD universe
Comments: This film explores twentieth-century art by women, focusing on
nine of thirteen artists whose works compose the Gihon art collection: Works by
Women. The artists provide the dialogue, about artistic techniques employed,
family background, philosophy of art, self-criticism, and success. Artists
featured in the film are: Lynda Benglis, Nancy chambers, Clyde Connell, Janet
Fish, Hermine Ford, Dorothy Hood, Mary McCleary, Gail Stack and Dee Wolff.
My Feminism
Director Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert
Year 1997
Subject Educational Documentary
Language English
Running Time 55 minutes
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Comments: In an era of anti-feminist backlash, this articulate documentary
by the makers of Thank God I'm a Lesbian forcefully reminds us that the
revolution continues. Powerful interviews with feminist leaders including bell
hooks, Gloria Steinem, and Urvsahi Vaid are intercut with documentary sequences
to engagingly explore the past and present status of the women's movement.
Discussing the unique contributions of second wave feminism, they explore their
racial, economic and ideological differences and shared vision of achieving
equality for women. An essential component of women's studies curricula, My
Feminism introduces feminism's key themes while exposing the cultural fears
underlying lesbian baiting, backlash, and political extremism.
My Heart Is My Witness
Director: Louise Carre
Year 1996
Subject Documentary
Language English
Running Time 56 minutes
Distributor Women Make Movies
Comments: The film investigates the status of women in Islam through
interviews with men and women from Mali, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Though
often caricatured by Western media as a homogenous group of veiled
subordinates, this documentary shows the diversity of Muslim women, informed by
both religion and culture. In Mali, women speak of the comfort afforded by
their religion, while at the same time recognizing that Islam is abused by men
to thwart women’s development. In Morocco, while some put their faith and
conviction in Islam and its proscriptions, others believe that only education
and struggle can help women. This sentiment, that “Women’s rights are never
given, they are always fought for,” is echoed by women from Algeria and
Tunisia. This moving and stirring exploration of women’s rights and
restrictions in Northern Africa and the Arabic peninsula helps us understand
these women’s lives, struggles and dreams.
My Journey, My Islam
Director: Kay Rasool
Year: 1999
Subject: Documentary
Running Time: 56 minutes
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Comments: My Journey, My Islam is an intriguing look at the
questions that some Muslim women in the West ask themselves: what is Islam's
relationship to me and my relationship to it, living in the West? Rasool's
personal quest to answer these questions also introduces the viewer to the
lives of several Muslim women (mostly non-Arab), including several Indian
Muslims, a convert and a Lebanese woman marrying an non-Arab Muslim, as she
journeys between the West and the Indian sub-continent where she was born.
Rasool's portraits are particularly striking and well-fleshed out, accompanied
as they are by visually compelling images of everyday Islamic life. While this
is not an introductory guide to women in Islam, it is must see viewing for
those who wonder how Muslim women reconcile and they interpret the requirements
of their faith and the obligations of Western culture. In addition, it is
refreshing to find a documentary on Muslim women which talks not about them,
but to them. This documentary is particularly timely in light of the fact that
there is a growing, highly visible second generation of young Muslims in the
West who seek to combine their faith with busy, productive Western lives. This
would be a wonderful video to use to initiate conversations on cultural and
religious plurality as well as discussions on assimilation and dual identity."
Rebecca Romani, Co-chair, Middle East Caucus, Society for Cinema Studies
Myths That Maim
Year 1992
Subject Documentary
Artist Maureen O'Hara, PhD
Language English
Running Time 46 minutes
Distributor Enicinitas Center for Family and Personal Development
Comments
Myths that Maim begins with alarming statistics on gender violence and
exploitation. It then examines the role that art, films, advertisements and
stories play in creating gendered identities. These "myths" set up women as
victims and men as perpetrators. The myths of: woman , earth and nature, woman
as a seductress, woman and magic, woman as a virgin, the fetishization of
weakness...etc. are explored.
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