FILM/VIDEO DESCRIPTIONS
At Highest Risk
By Rebecca Rivas
Saturday 9:10 am
Andean women in Peru have faced a massive sterilization campaign, exorbitant fines for homebirths, remnants of a deadly civil war, and the second highest maternal death rate in South America. Through the compelling story of one Andean woman, we see the horrors and triumphs of Peru’s volatile health care situation. At Highest Risk winds through the Andean people’s spirituality and their mysterious gift of self preservation. As part of a Fulbright grant, the film’s crew spent one year researching and filming in some of the most inaccessible regions of the Andes. This is an intimate look at reproductive health care in a developing country. Brittany Gravely, Documentary Educational Resources, 2006, 45 min.
Be Fruitful & Multiply
By Shosh Shlam
Saturday 1:20 pm
How does it feel to have been pregnant or breastfeeding for most of your unmarried life? The film profiles four ultra-orthodox Jewish women in the U.S. and Israel, documenting their daily routines. In interviews, each of the women discuss their lives, focusing on their belief in the traditional and distinctive roles for women and men dictated by Jewish religion as well as on the condition of perpetual motherhood as the “natural” and desirable state of being for women. First Run/Icarus Films, 2005, 50 min.
Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories
By Beyondmedia Education
Friday 8:00 am
The empowered Fe Fes (slang for female), a group of young women with disabilities, hit the streets of Chicago on a quest to discover the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them. Their revelations are humorous, thought provoking and surprising. As the young women grapple with issues as diverse as access, education, employment, sexuality, and growing up with disabilities, they address their audience with a sense of urgency, as if to say, “I need to tell you so you’ll see me differently.” Beyondmedia Education, 2004, 26 min.
Far From Home
By Rachel Tsutsumi
Friday 9:15 am
While busing is a rapidly-fading memory in most American schools, it continues to be a reality for over 3,000 Boston students every year. Kandice is one of them, an African American teenager who has been bussed to a predominantly white suburb since kindergarten. In this revealing documentary, she takes us inside her triumphs, struggles, and conflicted feelings about traversing these two worlds. She also reveals her family’s long history of integrated education and activism. Women Make Movies, 2005, 40 min.
Freedom is Contagious
By Helen Garvy
Friday 2:50 pm
Freedom is Contagious explores the early history of the women’s movement that grew in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing especially on the interconnections with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). While presenting important events, this film focuses on the thinking behind all these events. The first-person stories are woven together, accompanied by graphics and photos from the period. Shire Films, 2003, 40 min.
Girl House Art Project
By Brooke Randolph
Friday 8:35 am
This film documents the last month of the 10-month “Girl House Art Project,” inspired by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro’s 1972 “Womanhouse.” YWCA Santa Monica / Westside Volunteer, Kesa Kivel, offered a broad-based feminist curriculum in an interactive format to a small group of middle school girls. For their art instillation, the girls transformed an on-site house into a bedroom of a girl who is being sexually harassed, artistically expressing her worries, fears, and potential consequences. Kesa Kivel, 2006, 16 min.
Girl Wrestler
By Diane Zander
Friday 10:40 am
This absorbing documentary follows Texas teenager Tara Neal, who bucks traditional expectations by insisting that girls and boys should be allowed to wrestle on the same mat. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Diane Zander follows Tara on her journey to the national championships as she battles sexism, deals with family issues and fights with her own body to control her weight. Women Make Movies, 2004, 53 min.
I Had an Abortion
By Gillian Aldrich & Jennifer Baumgardner
Saturday 10:05
Cutting across age, race, class and religion this fiercely honest documentary features intimate interviews with 10 women - including famed feminist Gloria Steinem - who candidly describe experiences spanning seven decades, from the years before Roe v. Wade to the present day. This film insightfully documents how changing societal pressures have affected women’s choices and experiences. Women Make Movies, 2005, 55 min.
Inside Out
By Zohreh Shayesteh
Saturday 6:35 pm
Inside Out features intimate conversations with three transsexuals living in Iran, allowing them to tell their stories, including the lifelong struggle to come to terms with their gender dysphoria and how it has affected their everyday behavior, and the impact of hormone therapy and sex-change surgery on their lives. The film also includes interviews with a Muslim cleric, who explains that the majority of Iran’s religious leaders consider transsexuality to be a human rights issue and therefore support gender reassignment surgery; a psychiatrist, who explains the difference between homosexuality and transsexuality and how the condition cannot be cured psychologically; and a surgeon, who discusses the nature and the difficulties of the required surgery. First Run/Icarus Films, 2006, 39 min.
Look Us in the Eye: The Old Women’s Project
By Jennifer Abod
Saturday 8:35 am
In this video about ageism and activism from a feminist perspective, San Diegans Cynthia Rich, Manni Garza and Janice Keaffaber take the stereotypes of an ageist culture and turn them on their heads. Wearing brilliant t-shirts that declare “Old Women are Your Future” and carrying their giant multi-ethnic old woman puppet, POWER (Pissed Old Woman Engaged in Revolution), The Old Women’s Project refuses invisibility and proclaims that old women are part of every social justice issue. Profile Productions, 2006, 26 min.
Maquilapolis (City of Factories)
By Vicky Funari & Sergio De La Torre
Friday 4:45 pm
In Maquilapolis, we meetCarmen a $6 per day worker in one of Tijuana's maquiladoras, the multinationally-owned factories that came to Mexico for its cheap labor. Carmen and her friend Lourdes confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos, reaching beyond their daily struggle for survival to organize for change, taking on both the Mexican and U.S. governments and a major television manufacturer. The women also use video cameras to document their lives, their city and their hopes for the future. The Maquila Project, 2006, 68 min.
Mohawk Girls
By Tracey Deer
Friday 11:40 am
Tracking issues of identity, culture, and family, Mohawk Girls follows three outspoken and exuberant Mohawk teenagers on their journey to adulthood. Deeply emotional yet unsentimental, this film provides and intimate look into what it means to grow up Native at the beginning of the 21st century. Women Make Movies, 2005, 63 min.
Mom’s Apple Pie, The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement
By Jody Laine, Shan Ottey & Shad Reinstein
Saturday 4:15 pm
While the LGBT Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian mothers. Founders of the Lesbian Rights Project (now the National Center for Lesbian Rights) and the Lesbian Mothers’ National Defense Fund recount the founding of their organizations in response to the bevy of court rulings granting custody to grandparents, fathers and distant relatives based on the belief that lesbians would be unfit parents. This film revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children. Frameline, 2006, 60 min.
Motherland Afghanistan
By Sedika Mojadidi
Saturday 12:00 pm
Afghanistan today has the second highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. In Motherland Afghanistan, Afghan-American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi vividly depicts the extent of this tragedy by documenting the 2003 return to Afghanistan of her father, an OB/GYN, as he attempts to rehabilitate the largest women’s hospital in the country with the promised support of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and his subsequent leaving and return to Afghanistan to work with an Afghan NGO. This film reveals that far more resources are needed to improve women’s healthcare in this beleaguered nation. First Run/Icarus Films, 2005, 73 min.
No Umbrella: Election Day in the City
By Laura Paglin
Saturday 8:00 am
No Umbrella is an unblinking look at the 2004 US Election Day failures in one of Ohio’s poorest neighborhoods. In the most hotly contested state in the country, gridlock at inner city polls ignites tempers and sets off charges of conspiracy. We are squarely dropped into the chaos as we watch the irascible octogenarian councilwoman (Ms. Fannie Lewis) take on polling place breakdowns, and unresponsive bureaucracy and an increasingly agitated electorate. Bullfrog Films, 2005, 26 min.
No! Confronting Sexual Assault
By Aishah Shahidah Simmons
Saturday 9:00 pm
No! provides a comprehensive lens to examine the impact of sexual violence on Black women and girls-calling to task in particular the behaviors and attitudes of Black men in reinforcing a pervasive cultural assault. This film includes insightful analysis from leading Black feminists, interviews with national violence prevention leaders and testimonials from sexual assault survivors who defy victimization. California Newsreel., 2006, 94 min.
Ordinary Lives
By Sheetal S. Agarwal
Saturday 3:35 pm
Ordinary Lives uncovers the living conditions of residents in a slum in Mumbai, focusing on the daily struggles of one joint family with ten members of three generations crammed in a 180-square-foot shack. This family represents those at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Through a poised juxtaposition of voices from both inside and outside the slums, the film re-examines issues such as poverty, human rights, and gender equality that have been troubling India and other developing countries. Brittany Graveley, Documentary Educational Resources, 2005, 38 min.
Queen of the Mountain
By Martha Goell Lubell
Friday 9:45 pm
Theresa Goell started her career as an archeologist with four strikes against her: she was female, divorced, a Jew working with Muslims and hearing impaired. Goell abandoned the lifestyle of her conservative family in 1933 to pursue her passion at Nemrud Dagh, an isolated mountaintop in Southwestern Turkey that had been shrouded in mystery until Goell’s pioneering excavations. Goell’s saga comes to life through National Geographic archival footage of the excavations, hundreds of family photographs and finally Goell’s oral history and letters. Women Make Movies, 2005, 56 min.
Rape for Who I am
By Lovinsa Kavuma
Saturday 7:20 pm
This documentary offers a fascinating and moving insight into the lives of South Africa’s black lesbians, who, raped because of their sexuality, refuse to become victims. The film interweaves their experiences as they prepare for an annual Gay Pride celebration. They describe the prejudices they have had to endure, the details of their attacks, and how this horrible crime, often ignored by the authorities, and intended to teach them to “act like women,” exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. The Cinema Guild, 2006, 27 min.
Saudi Solutions
By Bregtje van der Haak
Friday 6:00 pm
In Saudi Solutions, Bregtje van der Haak, the first Western filmmaker ever granted permission to film the lives of Saudi women, takes us inside this closed society where fewer than five percent of women do paid work. She profiles a journalist, a gynecologist, a photographer, a television news reader and the nation’s first female airline pilot. In discussing their everyday lives and concerns, they are surprisingly defensive of Saudi social customs, arguing that, while they see the desirability of gradual social reform, they see no conflict between Islamic law and the rights of women. First Run/Icarus Films, 2006, 77 min.
Suckerfish
By Lisa Jackson
Friday 9:00
When she was ten, Lisa Jackson fled Toronto to live with relatives in Vancouver to escape her mother’s depression, alcoholism and prescription drug abuse - legacies of the residential school experience. Now, sifting through her memories and her mother’s letters, she constructs a portrait of a mother whose drive to love her daughter triumphed over her demons of addiction. Animation, childhood photographs, and stylized recreations add the young child’s whimsical voice to this moving, at times humorous, look at the director’s relationship to her mother and native identity. Brittany Graveley, Documentary Educational Resources, 2004, 8 min.
The Forest for the Trees
By Bernadine Mellis
Friday 3:40 pm
This is the amazing story of Judi Bari’s activism for Earth First! and the fight to clear her name after her car was bombed and she was arrested as a terrorist. As the story unfolds to its dramatic ending, this film provides insight into threats to civil rights in the context of environmental issues. Bullfrog Films, 2006, 57 min.
The Grace Lee Project
By Grace Lee
Saturday 2:20 pm
When award-winning filmmaker Grace Lee was growing up in Missouri, she was the only Grace Lee she knew. In New York and California, however, everyone she meets seems to know “another Grace Lee.” But why did they assume that all Grace Lees are reserved, dutiful, piano-playing bookworms? Pursuing the moving target of Asian-American female identity, the filmmaker plunges into a clever, highly unscientific investigation into all those Grace Lees who break the mold - from a fiery social activist to a rebel who tried to burn down her school. Women Make Movies, 2005, 68 min.
The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner & Otto Hahn
By Rosemarie Reed
Friday 8:40 pm
This film details the story of Lise Meitner who made scientific history when she and her collaborator, Otto Hahn, discovered nuclear fission in 1938. It captures Meitner’s efforts to make her way in the male-dominated world of physics, the racial and political discrimination that forced Meitner to live in exile, and ongoing speculation about her exclusion from the Nobel Prize. These elements are explored through photos, letters, notes, stock footage, and maps; interviews with writers, scientists, and historians; and music of the day. Filmakers Library, 2006, 56 min.
The Pornography of Everyday Life
By Jane Caputi, Susan Rosen Kranz
Friday 2:05 pm
This video incorporates over 200 images from advertising, the news, ancient myth, contemporary art, and pornography as it suggests that “pornography” is really a mainstream worldview, one supporting not only sexism, but also racism, militarism, torture and environmental destruction. Visionary artists and thinkers re-imagine female sexuality and/or the female divine, restoring respect to the feminine principle, and calling for new understandings of sex, mystery, connection, eroticism, and ecstasy. Berkeley Media LLC, 2007, 34 min.
The Shape of Water
By Kum-Kum Bhavnani
Friday 7:25 pm
The Shape of Water interweaves the intimate stories of six women living in Senegal, Brazil, India, and Jerusalem. The women abandon female genital mutilation, tap for rubber to protect the rainforest, protect the biodiversity of the planet and oppose military occupations. This film offers a unique view of the complex realities of the women and their passions to create a more just world. Kum-Kum Bhavnani, 2006, 70 min.
Tomboys! Feisty Girls and Spirited Women
By Julie Akeret & Christian Mc Ewan
Friday 10:05 am
Are tomboys “tamed” once they reach adolescence? This lively and inspiring documentary explodes that archaic myth with the stories of proud tomboys of all ages. Exploring the myriad ways gender identity is constructed from a very young age, Tomboys makes the connections between rebel girl and spirited women gloriously clear. Women Make Movies, 2004, 28 min.
Toxic Bust: Chemicals & Breast Cancer
By Megan Siler
Saturday 11:10 am
Toxic Bust, a thought-provoking and visually compelling documentary, uncovers the growing evidence which links breast cancer to toxic chemical exposure in the home, community and workplace. This film also raises questions about the long term health costs associated with early childhood chemical exposure and highlights the disproportionate toxic burden carried by low-income communities and workers. Bullfrog Films, 2006, 41 min.
Transparent
By Jules Rosskam
Saturday 5:25 pm
Pink or blue. Male or female. Mommy or daddy. Categories that we all take for granted are broken apart in Transparent, a documentary about 19 female-to-male transsexuals who have given birth and gone on to raise their biological children. Transparent focuses on its subjects’ lives as parents, revealing the diverse ways in which each parent reconciles giving birth and being a biological mother with his masculine identity. Traditional views of gender are further re-examined through the variety of genders the children use to conceive of their parents. Frameline, 2005, 61 min.
Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars
By Ellen Spiro & Karen Bernstein
Friday 12:50 pm
This unique Girl Scout Troop brings daughters together with their inmate mothers. Intimately involved with the troop for several years, the directors took their cameras far beyond meetings to explore the painful context of broken families. Powerful insight comes from interviews shot by the girls themselves, which reveal their conflicted feelings of anger and joy, abandonment and intimacy-as well as the deep influence their mothers still have on them. Women Make Movies, 2005, 68 min.
Turning a Corner
By Beyondmedia Education
Saturday 7:55 pm
Turning a Corner documents a workshop facilitated by Beyondmedia Education with Prostitution Alternatives Round Table to give voice to people in the sex trade industry and expose the harsh realities of street prostitution in Chicago. The film tells the women’s stories of survival and triumph over homelessness, violence and discrimination and gives rare insights into Chicago’s sex industry. Beyondmedia Education, 2006, 58 min.
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Film Disbributors
Berkeley Media LLC
Saul Zaentz Film Center
2600 Tenth Street, Suite 626
Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: 510-486-9900
Fax: 510-486-9944
Email: info@berkeleymedia.com
www.berkeleymedia.com
Beyondmedia Education
7013 N. Glenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60626
Phone: 773-973-2280
Fax: 773-973-3367
E-mail: beyond@beyondmedia.org
www.beyondmedia.org
Bullfrog Films
P. O. Box 149
Oley, PA 19547
Phone: 800-543-3764 or 610-779-8226
Fax: 610-370-1978
E-mail: video@bullfrogfilms.com
www.bullfrogfilms.com
California Newsreel
500 Third Street, Suite 505
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: 415-284-7800
Fax: 415-284-7801
E-mail: contact@newsreel.org
www.newsreel.org
Documentary Educational Resources
101 Morse Street
Watertown, MA 02472
Phone: 617-926-0491
Fax: 800-569-6621 or 617-926-9519
E-mail: docued@der.org
www.der.org
Filmakers Library
124 East 40th Street
New York, NY 10016
Phone: 212-808-4980
Fax: 212-808-4983
E-mail: info@filmakers.com
www.filmakers.com
First Run/Icarus Films
32 Court Street, 21st Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Phone: 800-876-1710 or
718-488-8900
Fax: 718-488-8642
E-mail: lori@frif.com
www.frif.com
Frameline
145 Ninth St., Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94103-2632
Phone: 415-703-8650
Fax: 415-861-1404
E-mail:
distribution@frameline.org
www.frameline.org/distribution
Kesa Kivel
555 S. Barrington Ave., #208
Los Angeles, CA 90049
Phone: 310-476-3456
E-mail: kesakivel@earthlink.net
Kum-Kum Bhavnani
102 San Roque Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Phone: 805-898-0880
Fax: 805-898-0885
E-mail: bhavnani@soc.ucsb.edu
www.theshapeofwatermovie.com
Profile Productions
P.O. Box 21387
Long Beach, CA 90801
Phone: 562-432-6416
E-mail: Jennifer@Jenniferabod.com
www.jenniferabod.com
Shire Films
644 Hester Creek Rd.
Los Gatos, CA 95033
Phone: 408-353-4253
E-mail: sdsrebels@aol.com
www.sdsrebels.com
The Cinema Guild
130 Madison Ave., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (800) 723-5522
or 212-685-6242
Fax: (212) 685-4717
E-mail: info@cinemaguild.com
www.cinemaguild.com
The Maquila Project
433 Louisiana Street
Vallejo, CA 94590
Phone: (707) 557 0946
E-mail: vixfunari@earthlink.net
or delatorre@ucsd.edu
www.maquilapolis.com
Women Make Movies
462 Broadway, Suite 506C
New York, NY 10013
Phone: 212-925-0606
Fax: 212-925-2052
E-mail: info@wmm.com
www.wmm.com
The Film/Video Committee
Micheal Armato
Alison Bailey
Shelly Bannister
Erik Bataller
Deberah Bernstein
Ann Botz, Secretary
Pamela Cook
Natasha Douglas
Laurie Fuller, Chair
Adrienne Holloway
Lauren Levato
Nancy Matthews
Erica Meiners
Aqua Moon
Audrey Natcone
Annum Qureshi, Student Assistant
Rebecca Rodriguez, Student Assistant
BarBara Scott
Mary Shelden
Brett Stockdill
Kristine Zimmermann
The Schedule:
( ) = running time
FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2007
8:00 Beyond Disability:
The Fe Fe Stories (26)
8:35 Girl House Art Project (16)
9:00 Suckerfish (8)
9:15 Far From Home (40)
10:05 Tomboys (28)
10:40 Girl Wrestler (53)
11:40 Mohawk Girls (63)
12:50 Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (68)
2:05 The Pornography of Everyday Life (33)
2:50 Freedom is Contagious (40)
3:40 The Forest for the Trees (57)
4:45 Maquilapolis (68)
6:00 Saudi Solutions (77)
7:25 The Shape of Water (70)
8:45 The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner & Otto Hahn (56)
9:50 Queen of the Mountain (56)
ENDS 10:50 pm
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2007
8:00 No Umbrella: Election Day in the City (26)
8:35 Look Us in the Eye:
The Old Women’s Project (26)
9:10 At Highest Risk (45)
10:05 I Had an Abortion (55)
11:10 Toxic Bust: Chemicals & Breast Cancer (41)
12:00 Motherland Afghanistan (73)
1:20 Be Fruitful & Multiply (50)
2:20 The Grace Lee Project (68)
3:35 Ordinary Lives (38)
4:20 Mom’s Apple Pie, The Heart of the Lesbians Mothers’ Custody Movement (60)
5:30 Transparent (61)
6:40 Inside Out (39)
7:30 Rape for Who I Am (27)
8:05 Turning a Corner (58)
9:15 No! Confronting Sexual Assault (94)
ENDS 10:50 pm
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