Film Categories: Work about Women

  • Low Visibility

    This is the first feature directed by Patricia Gruben, who created the much-admired “The Central Character” and the award-winning “Sifted Evidence.” Gruben is one of Canada’s foremost filmmakers, part of a new generation which combines avant-garde techniques with narrative elements. “Low Visibility” finds a man wandering alone on a snowy mountain roadside, waving his arms and shouting at the sky. The enigmatic Mr. Bones, an apparent amnesiac, is unableor unwilling to explain what has happened to him. He arouses, as a result, the curiosity not only of the doctors and nurses of the hospital he is taken to, but also…

  • Magic Man

    A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images. With Robert Cowan, Mike Kuchar, Donna Kerness, Mr. E and others.

  • Making a Scene

    Offers passersby the opportunity to don a mask and become either an elephant or a mosquito. A look at people’s inhibitions.

  • Man Who Envied Women, The

    Jack Deller, a professor of Foucauldian and Lacanian theory, is left by his artist-wife after four years of marriage. Deller is played by two actors; the wife is never seen. Her voice is heard throughout – it governs the film. The camera pursues him on the image track, while her voice pursues her train of thought. The structure of the film is elaborated in a constant interweaving of fiction and documentary, narrative and theory, amidst issues of sexuality, aging, power relations, and political activism.

  • Mary

    Mary is a kind of everygirl, living with her parents’ constant battling, but able only to deal with the kid stuff – the boy who picks on her at school, the embarrassment her best friend causes. I liked the kitschy ‘70s setting. It kind of reminded me, because I lived through that era, of the stuff I had to deal with when I was little. (VR)

  • Mary Mary

    Presented as an autobiography, “Mary Mary” interweaves the political with the mythical; visual and textual “quotes” from other films with fragments of children’s stories; and dreams and memories with history. “M” is an ambiguous figure: an English-Canadian woman filmmaker struggling with the representational structures that form and are formed by her as she tries to make a film. At first her script eludes her. Locked in her room, she becomes tangled in a web of memories, images and stories, quotations and histories. Yet even within these confines (narrative and psychic, as well as architectural) the possibility of new readings is…

  • Matilda

    “Matilda” is an impressionistic portrait of a woman confined to a wheelchair. Through a series of five vignettes, the history of her life unfolds enhanced by a blend of experimental and documentary elements. In the last vignette, entitled ” Matilda’s Interview,” we leave the film with an understanding of her personal survival. Produced with assistance from the Ontario Arts Council.

  • Matinee, The

    A docudrama showing that bingo is more than monetary fantasy.

  • Matter of Expectations, A

    “A Matter of Expectations” depicts the life circumstances of women living in the Runnymede Hospital, a chronic care facility in Toronto. Longer life spans, low incomes, and a lack of housing alternatives force many women to be dependent on the health care system. This film surveys the problems confronting older women through interviews in which women discuss their feelings about aging, institutional life, the care they receive, and dying. Footage of life in the hospital with accompanying voice-overs presents a balanced view of the problematic position of older women in the 1980s.

  • Mayhem

    “Mayhem” gives homage to Film Noir, soap opera thrillers and Mexican comic books, which generate the action. Perversely and equally inspired by de Sade’s “Justine” and Vertov’s sentences about the satiric detective advertisement, “Mayhem” looks at sexuality and violence in the movies. “Mayhem” links the screen, the bedroom, and the streets to generate a mosaic of the way modern culture sends mixed signals about sexuality to men and women. “‘Mayhem’ is more than a detective story; it’s a hypermodern melding of forms, an erotic send-up of slapstick with a heady dose of cultural nay-saying.” – Elizabeth Pincus, Gay Community News…