Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Poulet Poulet

    “Poulet Poulet” is a light-hearted sociological look at the many roles of poultry in human life. The emphasis is placed on the lesser-known aspects of human/chicken relationships. Writer and broadcaster Margaret Wisser discusses the evolution of the interaction between people and chickens, including their poor example as sexual role models. Members of the Feather Fancier display their prize-winning birds. Songs, toys and chickens round out this picture.

  • Pretending We Were Indians

    “This short animated film represents the recollections of a woman whose native ancestry was obscured by the social mores of the recent past. Tracing fragments of information as she walks, the woman speculates on what really happened to her ancestors and herself.” – Frances Leeming

  • private patch of blue, a

    “I have breathed you in and there are no words to exorcise you from my soul.” – Eleanor Crow “An auto-portrait of maternity, ‘private patch’ shows Toronto filmer Tracy German quietly expectant, keening through winterludes of surprise before the birth of her first child. Episodically structured and materially assured, German’s exacting observational sense re-creates her domestic surround from the point of view of her boy-to-be, lurking over woodpiles and rock with eyes wide in wonder, turning the surrounding bush into a softly focused pastel glaze. “Deftly intercutting interiors and exteriors, ‘private’ opens on a wintry porch, a liminal architectural space…

  • Private Property / Public History

    “Having acquired a set of family snapshots at an auction sale, Doyle traced their origins to an Ontario family. She talked with the now-elderly women and reconstructed the photographs and the dialogue in this film which confronts issues of photographic representation and its uses in family history.” – “Toronto: A Play of History,” The Power Plant, 1987

  • Privilege

    The most remarkable thing was the silence that emanated from friends and family regarding the details of my single middle age. When I was younger, my sex life had been the object of all kinds of questioning, from prurient curiosity to solicitous concern. (YR)

  • Psychosynthesis

    The sub-personalities of me, my baby, athlete, witch, and artist are synthesized in this film of superimpositions, intensities, and colour layers coming quietly together through the healing powers of natural touchstone. (BH) “…I would gladly go out of my way to see it again and would travel some distance to a retrospective of its author’s work.” – Tom Dowling, Washington Star “Ms. Hammer, a feminist artist in a male-dominated industry, is clearly someone who has ideas which go beyond male-female roles into the very nature of the film experience. Her awards and prizes include the Louise Riskin Prize and her…

  • Punch Me in the Stomach

    “Life imitating art” is how comic Deb Filler describes the connection between her real life family and the characters she depicts in her offbeat 36-character solo show “Punch,” which balances humour, love, passion and pathos. Recreating the diverse eclectic experiences of her far-flung family by magically transforming herself into character after character, this is the story of a Holocaust survivor wih a difference. These stories mould themselves into a comic repertoire which is daring and delicate. Her comic talent is best described as Jackie Mason meets Tracey Ullman, with the British comedienne’s flair for mimicry and the Lower East Side…

  • Pursuit / Flight

    Animator Marilyn Cherenko continues her exploration of the poetic and spiritual qualities of life. The most lyrical of her films, “Pursuit/Flight” explores a woman’s fascination with a bird and the consequences of trying to “capture” freedom.

  • Quiproquo

    Situated in an environment where nature and social-industrial technology meet, the film attempts a visual dialogue with (and critique of) mainstream society’s concerns. To the extent that it refers to the economy of means involved in relation to what is stated, the work is both a reflection on the possibilities of the medium and an inquiry concerning the implications of the reality filmed.

  • Bad Brownies

    A mockumentary of memoires of childhood transgression. Former Brownies recall their lives in the organization, and two modern-day recruits – one a good Brownie and one a bad one – demonstrate different reactions to the rules and rituals of the Brownie circle.