Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Devotion

    “Devotion: a story about Ogawa Productions” is an 82-minute documentary of an important Japanese post-war documentary collective that made significant films of social struggle and village life. This investigative documentary situates the revolutionary lifestyle and films of Ogawa Productions within the framework of the global student movement of the New Left in the mid-’60s and the emerging documentary movement in Japan. In-depth stories from the collective members who contributed to this unique film making process are examined from a variety of perspectives and understandings. OSHIMA Nagisa, HARA Kazuo and HANEDA Sumiko, well-known film directors, present their personal recollections of this…

  • Taking My Skin

    “I’m not aware of you taking my skin,” says the artist’s mother to the camera as it zooms in on her eye as close as the lens will allow. “Taking My Skin” tracks a dialogue between the artist and her mother. Their exchange ranges from narrating the filming process “in the moment” to relations in an earlier time – “how long do you think it takes for a child to become separate?” Throughout the journey film spaces continuously dissolve and collapse only to separate again. Sometimes the artist is behind the camera, sometimes the mother, sometimes both simultaneously behind and…

  • Tide Marks

    Ten years after the triumph over Apartheid in South Africa, four former activists deal with the consequences of their dedication to human dignity with humour, frustration and hope. In this poignant and educational documentary, filmmaker Sarah Abbott presents issues that have been largely ignored by mainstream media, as its focus on the brutalities of apartheid shifted to the successes of transforming a nation. “Tide Marks” is an evocative collection of interviews, memories, observational footage, found photographs and South African music that re-visits apartheid history and looks at aspects of its present-day aftermath. Abbott’s intimate engagement with Cape Town residents reveals…

  • Dance with Me

    The impressionist, lyrical style of the film is a departure for Nicolaou, who describes this film as “one half documentary and one half fictional narrative.” The film is a collage visually and thematically, though the narration serves to anchor the piece with a freestyle kind of story telling. Nicolaou drew upon experiences in her own life when creating the film. She incorporates footage from her family’s home movies of the 60s and 70s. “A haunting portrayal of the yearning for intimacy between parent and child.” – Henry Mietkiewicz, Toronto Star Life always appears to be more joyous in old home…

  • Purple Lipstick

    Purple is the colour of a fresh bruise. Haley’s latest videopoem, “Purple Lipstick” confronts the insidious nature of domestic violence through compelling juxtapositions. A disembodied female voice employs vivid language, absurdist against a backdrop of banality, images of “normal” family life. Numb in her isolation and still in her nurse’s uniform, a wife and mother prepares dinner. The inherent terror of her homelife is invoked with excruciating tension. Its brutality can only be alluded to.

  • Dying for the Pleasure

    “Dying for the Pleasure” is the result of a poem-as-script strategy. It is a darkly humorous, kaleidoscopic trip down Memory Lane, the audience witness to a woman’s anxiety surrounding the loss of our humanity after we “crawl inside,” to become enveloped, shielded, and cut off from others by a body of steel. Director: Katrin Bowen Writer, Producer: Heather Haley

  • States

    The deepest recesses of the human psyche. An interpretation of Freud’s theory of transference.

  • Dandelions

    “Lyrical and full of mirth, this filmmaker wonders out loud in her first film: ‘How do I make myself at home in a landscape made foreign to me?’ Wilkinson looks at her self – black – and ponders in the white landscape called Canada how can she ‘enjoy the flowers’ as she cartwheels with great panache through fields of them. What kind of relationship to the land can she have in a place where she sees herself but where others constantly ask: Where are you from? Wilkinson’s existence vis a vis the land seems to lie somewhere in between the…

  • Awash

    “Awash” is a song for the mortal, depicted through images of, within and around water.

  • In the Dark (À l’ombre)

    A mother who has recently been incarcerated refuses to give up on her young son, no matter how fragile their connection may now be.