Feminist Film Manifestos. Double session

17:00 Presentation: Blanca Alvarez Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones.

Cosas de mujeres, Rosa Martha Fernández (Mexico, 1978, 45’)

This documentary, produced by the Mexican collective Cine-Mujer, denounces the problem of clandestine abortion in Mexico. The case of a young sociology student who lives an unwanted pregnancy and is subjected to the humiliation of a clandestine operation. The girl, sick from bad surgery, is taken  by a friend to the General Hospital where she meets the testimony of other women who have had abortions. The film also reveals shocking statistics on the deaths caused by this type of operations carried out under precarious conditions.

Pond and Waterfall, Barbara Hammer (USA, 1982, 15’, no sound)

All kinds of algae, fish roe, viscous creatures and rocks appear in front of the camera's eye which, guided by the body of the swimmer-amphibian, reminds us of the intimate connection with the natural ecosystem. An audiovisual piece that seems to evoke the water lilies of Monet while summoning, exante, the spirit of the Ecosex Manifesto by Annie Sprinkle and Elisabeth Stephens. Copy courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.

Cosmetic Emergency, Martha Colburn (Netherlands-Canada, 2005, 8’)

Starting with a pictorial intervention on several Super8, 16 and 35 mm films, the director generates a lyrical animation where she explores a series of images that move from the musical to the battlefield, from the idea of beauty to war, from the intervention from bodies to the colonial occupation of space.

19:00

L'aggettivo donna, (Colletivo Feminista Cinema-Roma, Italia, 1971, 55') 

Considered as the first Italian feminist film, L'aggettivo donna is a militant piece dedicated to women and about women. Directed by the emerging Colletivo Femminista Cinema-Roma, which would later be made by La lotta non é finita, the film shows the politicized daily life of very diverse women who work at home, occupy factories, narrate sexual experiences or clandestine abortions and denounce patriarchal education among close-ups of Roman statues penises and misogynist quotes from the "great" philosophers. 

Copy courtesy of Cineteca Nazionale - Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.