Recently in Film Category

There's no question that being an artist in this culture--which does little to support the creative impulse and its contributions to society--just ain't easy. As if it wasn't hard enough just to make art, believe in yourself, and pay your rent, imagine also being a mother.

That's the life that five amazing women lead in Pamela Tanner Boll's new film, Who Does She Think She Is? Pamela, a friend and awesome feminist, also co-produced Born Into Brothels, which won an Academy Award for best documentary in 2005.

This film explores work/family balance, but with a particular lens on mother artists, who struggle to find a balance between what they love and who they love. Full self disclosure: I'm featured as an "expert" in the film. There's even a scene where I'm blogging for feministing! Bonus points for noticing the hilarious title of the post I'm working on if you see the film.

Anyway, check out the blog, watch the trailer below, and, if you're in the New York area, come check out the film at Angelika Film Center starting on Friday, October 17th. On opening night, the 17th, I'll be moderating a post show panel that includes Elizabeth Sackler, Pamela Tanner Boll, and one of the artists from the film.

This award-winning doc on the painful aftermath of Katrina for New Orleans residents is finally hitting theaters. Check out if it's playing near you and support!

I think "We don't want to get your expectations too high," says it all.

I just returned from my annual weekend in Telluride with my family seeing 15 amazing films. My mom started the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in my hometown, Colorado Springs, after going to the Telluride Film Festival for the first time. Since then it has become a set-in-stone tradition for us, a little jolt of inspiration and art that we experience every Labor Day.

These were the films that I believe have particular feminist resonance from this year's festival, so keep your eyes peeled for them:

American Violet

So often when you see "civil rights" movies, they are set in the time of Jim Crow, Martin and Malcolm. This amazing film--based on a true story--is set in our very own decade. Dee Roberts, a single mom from a tiny town in Texas, is arrested on bogus drug charges--designed to pad the racist district attorney's arrest record. The ACLU gets involved and the rest is history. Dee Roberts and her four kids were actually in Telluride. It always takes your breath away to see a genuine heroine after watching a film like this.

I was especially excited about this film, because an old friend of mine--Malcolm Barrett--stole the show. He and I used to do spoken word poetry together in college and now he's undoubtedly on his way to being a critically-acclaimed actor. Go Malcolm!

On a less encouraging note, this asshole district attorney is still serving in Texas. When the film has its nationwide release, I'll post again about what we can all do to express our absolute outrage that this jerk is still in office.

Everlasting Moments
This Swedish film is a true epic and a frightening look into just how difficult working class women's lives were at the turn of the century. The main character struggles through years of child birthing and rearing, an abusive, alcoholic husband, and poverty with a sort of gritty grace; her salvation is in her discovery of photography.

I was particularly struck by Maria Heiskanen's--the main actor's--capacity to perform the main character as both tough as nails, and frustratingly stuck and permissive to her husband. It beautifully encapsulated women's complex lives and identities at the time.

We've written about the great film At Your Cervix before, but this time we need your help.

The film's director Amy Jo Goddard has written Feministing to let us know that they're trying to get the word out about the project and, of course, need funds in order to do so. Right now, the film is up for up for a $10,000 award on Idea Blob - they're one of eight finalists. So if you like what At Your Cervix is doing, and you want to support Goddard's work, head on over and vote!

Check out the trailer for this new doc, Seeking Happily Ever After, that a friend of a friend is working on about the 60 million single women over 30 and the ways in which they are remaking the "happily ever after" fairytale.

The filmmakers, Kerry David and Michelle Cove, are throwing a big fundraiser in LA on August 14th, so if you're in the area and all about radical revisioning of love/happiness/partnership, definitely show your support. Details here.

Feministing friend and vicious intellect Alissa Quart has a piece online for Mother Jones about the new trend of “fertility films�—Hollywood heartstringers about super independent women finally coming to terms with their maternal urges (Smart People, Baby Mama, Then She Found Me, Juno, Knocked Up, and Happy Endings). In part, Quart is asking: “Are the new fertility film stars actually feminists?�

The answer is complicated. On the one hand, it’s feminist to see women going after what they want. Despite a lot of frustration with Juno on the part of feminists (especially older, in my experience) regarding the abortion scene, I have to admit that I thought it was, big picture, a wildly feminist film. Since when has a teen girl protagonist done anything in Hollywood other than coo-ing? I know my standards are low, but Juno got it right in a lot of ways. And, what’s more, Ellen Page calls herself a feminist in public.

Tina Fey (public disclosure: I have a major thang for Tina) plays an uptight, but certainly self-actualized gal in Baby Mama (where, let’s face it, the real story is about class). To see two female comedians getting top billing and raking in the box office bucks made me happy as a clam (ah vagina puns).

BUT…as we all know, choice doesn’t equal empowerment. Quart writes: “…these films recast the "pro-choice" narrative of feminists' personal and political past as a different, less politically dangerous sort of pro-choice story—a woman's right to choose from a smorgasbord of late fertility options.�

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache. “Silly women,� the screenwriters seem to be saying, “let’s make fun of their plight.� But as Quart reminds us, these scenarios are real—in the beginning. Then the film plots reduce them to ridiculousness: “these films are rather conservative at heart; their entanglements all end far more neatly than their real life counterparts.�

And finally, why all the frickin’ babies? I was reminded of Bella DePaulo’s great work that I reviewed awhile ago. Quart writes: “…these films' endings can't help but make me wonder: Where are the images of exceptional thirty- and fortysomething women without bassinets?�

Good question Ms. Alissa. Thanks for the analysis.

Martha Ma is a food and media educator and producer, community chef and health counselor. She is the host and producer of "The Tasty Life," a bi-weekly television show on Manhattan Public Access channel 57, and the editor of the e-newsletter, "Eater's Digest."

Martha is also executive producer of the Food for Thought Film Festival. If you're in the NYC area this weekend, check out the last weekend of the festival at Cooper Union's Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place at Third Ave. Feature films include King Corn, Black Gold, and Life and Debt. Shorts include The Meatrix I, II and II 1/2 and The True Cost of Food.

Here's Martha...

Katori Hall is a playwright, performer and journalist from Memphis, Tennessee. Her award-winning play, "Hoodoo Love" received its world-premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre November 1, 2007. Her other plays include: "Remembrance," "Hurt Village," "Saturday Night/Sunday Morning," "The Mountaintop," and "Freedom Train."

She is a recipient of numerous writing awards including the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, 2006 Royal Court Theatre Residency, 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Recently, she was nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

As a journalist, her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Essence, Newsweek and The Commercial Appeal.

These are just some of the highlights of Katori's career. Here's Katori...

Sister Outsider is the latest project of novelists, screenwriters, and entrepreneurs Elisha Miranda and Sofia Quintero who have been collaborating since 2000. They co-founded the nonprofit Chica Luna Productions and its project, The F-Word, that is working to train the next generation of women of color filmmakers.

Julia Carias is an actor, educator, filmmaker, and Sister Outsider's Director of Operations and Productions.
Among her list of works and activism, Julia co-wrote, produced and directed her first play in 2002, "Roots," a production by La Casa Latina, an organization dedicated to promoting Latino culture throughout the college community.

Here's Julia...

Anyone who knows me, or my writing, is familiar with how proud I am of my mom. Well, it’s hard to remember a moment when I have ever been more proud than last weekend when I attended the 20th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival—a shindig she started from scratch along with lady friends that is now the longest running film festival in the world.
First a word on its founding, because the story is just so damn cool. Basically my mom and her friend, Donna Guthrie, were headed home to culturally starving Colorado Springs from the Telluride Film Festival one year and said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could bring films made by women, films that showed varied perspective and dealt with all kinds of social justice issues to Colorado Springs?� And then the other was like, “Hey, that would be cool. Let’s do it.� (Or something like that. I’m taking artistic daughter liberty, obviously.) Keep in mind that neither of these women knew a lick about film, film production, festival coordination, or the industry. They were skilled in all kinds of amazing ways—Donna is an award winning author and my mom is a badass clinical psychiatric social worker—but none directly related to film or festivals.
And they just did it.

Filmmaker Tiona. M. has worked in the educational documentary genre and pulled up her sleeves in the non-profit arena. This time, she has two documentary films that she wants to share with the world. One is on a Black women and her two daughters, and their university experience. The other, which I interviewed her on, is black./womyn.: conversations..., which should be out soon.

Here's Tiona...

I know I promised Miranda July, but you'll have to wait another week for her. Instead, I want to talk about movies (incidentally, if you haven't seen MJ's Me and You and Everyone We Know, check it out immediately).

My mom started the longest running women’s film festival in the world when I was just a wee young thing in the otherwise culturally-deprived city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. I grew up, nestled in the crook up her arm, watching the documentaries and feature films—always by and about women—that she would screen each year. It was, as you might imagine, ridiculously influential.

It also led to my family’s annual tradition (our version of a religious holiday) of going to the Telluride Film Festival. (By the by, check out the pic on the homepage...totally NOT Telluride). This year, I decided I’d take notes along the way and do a gender analysis of sorts of the films I saw. (My family is hardcore about movies, by the by; we saw 17 full-length films over the course of a weekend). So here you go…