Mrs His Name
2012 · 17m · Documentary
Why must a woman change her surname after marriage or divorce? This autoethnographic film explores the issue of women’s changing surnames in Turkey. Some women have taken their cases to the European Court of Human Rights to defend their legal and personal identities. What do men think about this? How do women feel? And what unfolds between the lines of these everyday experiences? The film seeks to make these struggles and emotions visible.
More Like This
Yo, tú, Ismaelina
1981
Film by Franca Donda and Josefina Jordán for the feminist collective Grupo Miércoles.
More info →
Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird
2023
In an America where more and more women and trans people are losing legal bodily autonomy, the history of Bill Baird’s long fight for women’s right to abortion is as relevant as ever. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa doesn’t just give us a portrait of Baird, but also creates a historical register of allyship and activism that those fighting to uphold freedom and choice can access, and perhaps emulate.
More info →
Play Your Gender
2017 · ★ 5
Juno Award-winning musician Kinnie Starr is on a quest to find out why only 5% of music producers are women even though many of the most bankable pop stars are female. What does it take for a woman to make it in music?
More info →
Virtuoso: The Olga Samaroff Story
2009
As America's first international woman concert pianist, renowned lecturer, author, music critic, famous conductor's wife and champion for equal rights for women in music, Olga Samaroff was at the center of a musical life that to this day embodies the imprint of her artistry and achievements. Her life story also portrays an era in our American cultural heritage that has largely been underserved in the documentary film genre. Texas-born Olga Samaroff a.k.a. Lucy Hickenlooper lived at a time when music was dominated by men and Old World prejudices----and she emerged as a leader among many. Against tremendous odds she rose from complete obscurity to be the most successful American woman concert pianist of the early 20th Century.
More info →
T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s
2013
The 1920s saw a revolution in technology, the advent of the recording industry, that created the first class of African-American women to sing their way to fame and fortune. Blues divas such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter created and promoted a working-class vision of blues life that provided an alternative to the Victorian gentility of middle-class manners. In their lives and music, blues women presented themselves as strong, independent women who lived hard lives and were unapologetic about their unconventional choices in clothes, recreational activities, and bed partners. Blues singers disseminated a Black feminism that celebrated emotional resilience and sexual pleasure, no matter the source.
More info →
Father, Son and Holy War
1994 · ★ 7.7
Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan looks to history and psychology as he delves into the possible reasons behind the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
More info →
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché
2021 · ★ 6.6
The death of punk icon and X-Ray Spex front-woman Poly Styrene sends her daughter on a journey through her mother's archives in this intimate documentary.
More info →
Old Lesbians
2023 · ★ 7.6
For the last quarter century, Houston native Arden Eversmeyer journeyed across the country to record hundreds of oral "herstories" with a mostly invisible population that is rapidly disappearing. Old Lesbians honors Arden's legacy by animating the resilient, joyful voices she preserved in the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, from first crush to first love, from the closet to coming out, and finally from loss to connection.
More info →