Film/Video Schedule

(All videos will be shown in the Pyle Center in Room 332)

35th Annual Wisconsin Women’s Studies Conference
and the 6th Annual UW System LGBTQ Conference

The State-of-the-Art in Women's, Gender, and LGBTQ Studies:
Interdisciplinary, Intersectional, Global, and Comparative

FRIDAY, March 25th

Session #1       8:30-9:30

• A Crushing Love:  Chicanas, Motherhood, and Activism, 58 min.

Features five Chicana activists (Dolores Huerta, Elizabeth Martinez, Cherrie Moraga, Alicia Escalante and Martha Cotera) discussing their roles as activists and as mothers.  Sequel to: Chicana (1979). 

Session # 2-3     9:45-12:00 

• 9:45-11:05: Uphill All the Way, 80 min. Robert Nassau, Khin May Lwin, and Susan Sarandon, Lean Parator Productions, distributed by Women Make Movies, 2000.

  A group of troubled teenage girls grow in self-esteem through participating in a grueling bicycle trip from the Canada-Montana border to the New Mexico-Mexico border.  

• 11:10 -11:35: The Line, 24 min. Nancy Schwartzman, Media Education Foundation, 2010.

  In this personal documentary, a young woman, who was raped during a one-night stand, explores the politics surrounding sex and consent in order to make sense of what happened to her. In many cases, the line between consent and coercion is ambiguous, illustrating the complicated and ambivalent ways sexual assault is often framed and understood in the wider culture. Completed after being presented in classrooms on dozens of college campuses, The Line is structured to invite and reward students' trust, making them comfortable enough to discuss sex, consent, legal rights, and the politics surrounding gender violence while examining issues too often deemed embarrassing, shameful, or taboo.

• 11:40- 12:00:  100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Girl is a Fellow Here, 19 min.  Beverly Willis, et al. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, 2009.
  
  Who knew that Frank Lloyd Wright employed and mentored numerous women architects in his Chicago firm and later at Taliesin? Six are profiled in this documentary. http://bwaf.org/.

Session #4       2:00- 3:00

• 2:00:   Not Yet Rain, 23 min. Lisa Russell,  Ejigayehu Shibabaw and  Maya Azucena, IPAS, 2009.

Through the story of two young girls in Ethiopia, Not Yet Rain examines the importance of access to safe abortions for women’s health. Although Ethiopia took the progressive step to legalize abortions, much more progress is needed. Many (young) women still lack ways to prevent unintended pregnancies and actual access to information and services if they seek to terminate an unintended pregnancy. A lack of information of sexual and reproductive rights and health and vulnerability to rape contribute to the high number of unintended pregnancies. The unawareness of and distance from abortion services combined with the fear of being stigmatized or ostracized by their community, or their inability to take off work for a day to have the procedure done, all contribute to the continued high numbers of deaths related to unsafe abortions. Streamed at http://www.notyetrain.org/.

• 2:30:   Sweatshop Cinderella, 27 min.

  Suzanne Wasserman, Women Make Movies, 2010."

Arriving from Poland around 1890, Anzia Yezierska's family settled on the Lower East Side, where she toiled in sweatshops and laundries. Defying her parents, she pursued her education and devoted herself full-time to writing award-winning stories and novels in Yiddish-English dialect. Soon Hollywood, which turned two of her works into movies, beckoned her to write screenplays. When disenchantment with that world set in, she returned to New York to write...Vividly depicts this Jewish immigrant writer's amazing story." (container)

Session #5       3:15-4:15

• 3:15:   Arresting Ana, 25 min. Lucie Schwartz, Women Make Movies, 2009.

  “Sarah, a French college student runs a "pro-Ana" blog, part of a global online community of young women sharing tips on living with anorexia. Valerie Boyer is a passionate French National Assembly legislator proposing a groundbreaking bill to ban these online forums, issuing hefty fines and two-year prison sentences to their members. This documentary offers an unprecedented access into anorexia’s hidden underground and considers how legal and free-speech issues are contested in a new media landscape”  (Worldcat record).

• 3:45:   Beyond Disability: the Fe Fe Stories, 29 min. Beyondmedia Education, 2004.

  “The Empowered Fe Fes (slang for female), a group of young women with disabilities, hit the streets of Chicago on a quest to discover the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them. Their revelations are humorous, thought provoking and surprising. As the young women grapple with issues as diverse as access, education, employment, sexuality and growing up with disabilities, they address their audience with a sense of urgency, as if to say, ‘I need to tell you so you’ll see me differently’" (container).

Session #6       4:30-5:30

• Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria --LGBT history, 57 min. Victor Silverman, Susan Stryker, et al. Independent Television Service, KQED, 2005.

  “...tells the little-known story of the first known act of collective, violent resistance to the social oppression of queer people in the United States--a 1966 riot in San Francisco’s impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood, three years before the famous gay riot at New York’s Stonewall Inn" (container).

SATURDAY, March 26th

Sessions #7    8:30- 9:30

• 8:30:  Absolutely Safe, 83 min. Carol Ciancutti-Leyva and Miriam Cutler, Amaranth Productions, 2008.

“At a time when more women than ever are getting breast implants, fewer voices than ever seem to be asking ‘Why?’ And fewer still are asking ‘Are they safe?’ Absolutely Safe takes an open-minded, personal approach to the controversy over breast implant safety. It is the story of everyday women who find themselves and their breasts in the tangled and confusing intersection of health, money, science, and beauty” (Worldcat record).

Sessions #8    9:45- 10:45

• 10:00:  Latching On: The Politics of Breastfeeding in America, 36 min. Katja Esson, Women Make Movies, 2010.

  In this short documentary, Esson sets out to understand the politics of breastfeeding in the United States. She compares this with other countries, where breastfeeding is more accepted, and therefore more often practiced and visible. Rather than engaging in the popular “good mothers breastfeed/ bad mothers bottle-feed” dichotomy, the documentary examines the political, economic, social and cultural forces that shape breastfeeding debates and practices among different groups of women. Esson particularly highlights racial and social-economic differences and the negative influence of the medicalization and commercialization of childbirth and newborn feeding on cultural attitudes towards breastfeeding.

Session #9       1:15-2:15

• Diagnosing Difference, 64 min. Annalise Ophelian & Anne Prewitt. Floating Ophelia Productions, 2009.
  
   “The smart new documentary Diagnosing Difference performs a full-frontal assault on the idea that transgender people are diseased, disordered, and mentally ill. The film cleverly begins with a reading of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s (DSM) official Gender Identity Disorder (GID) diagnosis2 by many of the film’s interviewees. Interspersed with the reading of this “scriptural text” are irreverent comments and critiques. This sets the stage for interviews with a diverse group of transgender and transsexual activists, scholars, performers, diversity trainers, and health care providers. The film provides a great thumbnail history of how transgender identity has been “managed” by the mental health industry, and includes excellent commentary by transgender scholar Susan Stryker.” (Joelle Ruby Ryan, from review in Feminist Collections at http://womenst.library.wisc.edu/publications/feminist-coll/TransDocumentaries.pdf).

Session #10    2:30-3:30

• Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy, 50 min. Renée Bergan, Mark Schuller, and  Edwidge Danticat, Documentary Educational Resources, 2009.
  
  "Told through the compelling lives of five courageous Haitian women workers, POTO MITAN gives the global economy a human face. Each woman's personal story explains neoliberal globalization, how it is gendered, and how it impacts Haiti. And while POTO MITAN offers an in-depth understanding of Haiti, its focus on women's subjugation, worker exploitation, poverty, and resistance demonstrates that these are global struggles"  (container).