Film Categories: Work about Women

  • Pioneers of X-Ray Technology

    “In Ann Marie Fleming’s ‘Pioneers of X-Ray Technology’ (a film about Grandpa), super-8 home movies are only one part of the film’s cooly complex structure. The first time I saw ‘Pioneers’ it looked like an uncomplicated portrait of Fleming’s grandfather, Dr. Ernest To, who was a photographer, amateur filmmaker and Hong Kong radiologist. On second viewing, the film’s ambivalence towards its subject becomes clear. “Fleming (‘You Take Care Now,’ ‘New Shoes’) is known for the ‘quirkiness’ of her films, but she’s above all a brilliant editor, both cinematographically and conceptually. Like nearly all her films, ‘Pioneers’ benefits from remarkable compression.…

  • Pleasure Film (Ahmed’s Story)

    “In a compelling narrative, a woman relates the trials of a hungry man who will go to great lengths to be fed. This latest work by Ann Marie Fleming once again demonstrates the artist’s delicious sense of the absurd. Featuring Valerie Buhagiar, Howard and His Doghouse and the off-screen presence of Ahmed, a master of tall tales.” – Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, Toronto, 1995

  • FREE JOAN LITTLE

    Free Joan Little tells the story of the 1975 groundbreaking case of Joan Little (pronounced Jo-Ann), who was one of the first women in U.S history to be acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault. Joan was a Black incarcerated woman in North Carolina who killed her white prison guard who was trying to rape her. Little’s murder trial became an international cause célèbre, uniting fractured social movements—Civil Rights activists, feminists, Black Power advocates, and death penalty opponents—in an unprecedented intersectional coalition that challenged systemic racism and sexism in the criminal justice system.

  • Broca

    Using poetry, interviews with psychologists and survivors, and corporeal imagery, Broca is an experimental documentary hybrid that explores how the mind-body connection is altered after trauma. The Broca’s Area in the brain is involved primarily in speech production. During a traumatic event or when trying to recall a traumatic event, this area shuts down. This makes it harder for a survivor to talk about what’s happened. Our project offers a platform for survivors to tell their stories both verbally and non-verbally.

  • Custom Trailer Series: Austin Powers

    Exploring écriture feminine and the patriarchal biases still present in commercial cinema, “Custom Trailer Series: Austin Powers” reimagines the original Hollywood film through the structure of a starburst quilt pattern. The work exists both as a material object and the visual representation, drawing attention to the materiality of the filmstrip This is the first in a new series that reimagines Hollywood trailers as film quilts. Previous films made from quilts include c: won eyed jail (NYFF 2005) and Athyrium Filix Femina (For Anna Atkins) (NYFF 2016).

  • and the story remains

    After years of silence, a woman returns to a memory she was once forbidden to recall. As she develops forgotten images, the past surfaces in fragments of light, grain, and the slow emergence of a face. The film lingers between past and present, exploring whether enforced silence can wound more deeply than the trauma itself.

  • The Gloria of Your Imagination

    New York based film artist Jennifer Reeves, known for her 16mm experiments, revisits “Three Approaches to Psychotherapy” (1965), which portrays Gloria Szymanski in sessions with three male therapists. Through found footage and tactile interventions on film, Reeves reframes the material into an empowering portrait. By adding home movies, newsreels, and advertisements, she situates Gloria’s story in context, exposing the unequal power dynamics behind the original film. Gloria emerges not as a case study but as a complex, vivid woman whose openness about her fears, desires, and contradictions still resonates today.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shaya Goldoust)

    Based on Shaya Goldoust’s audio journals narrating her attempts at testing rigid gender boundaries, and the transphobic incidents which led to her leaving her family and motherland, Iran.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shyla Hope)

    Based on recorded audio interviews with Shyla Hope discussing her inner self journey to understanding and accepting her identity as a lesbian trans woman growing up in Iran.

  • Let’s Rap

    “Women, speak your mind!” says one of the rappers in this collage of women of all ages and races who use the directness and power of rap music to express their views. These women, who rap in their own words about their own lives and beliefs present us with a lively, musical and often comical look at key issues facing women today. Let’s Rap! brims with energy, from its dynamic editing, witty set designs and colourful costumes right down to the pulsating beat which underlies its enthusiastic performances. Let by the powerful Montreal rap artist Freaky D, one of Quebec’s…