SHE/HER, THEY/THeM

click image to watch

A First Farewell
(2018, China and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 87 mins)
Dir. Lina Wang

A song-filled story about Uyghur schoolchildren struggling with Mandarin lessons at school and their parents who know that linguistic proficiency is the only way out of systemic poverty. Written and directed Ling Wang, a Chinese person of Uyghur ethnicity who grew up in Xinjiang, with performances by non-professional actors. Read the interview with Lina Wang.

click image to watch

After Hours
(1984, Australia, 26 mins)
Dir. Jane Campion

A woman accuses her employer of sexual abuse and an investigation ensues. By the acclaimed yet underrated New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion.

Chanthaly
(2012, Laos, 99 mins)
Dir. Mattie Do

A sickly young woman experiences visions of her dead mother. She struggles to determine if the apparition is simply a side effect of her daily medication, or her mother actually reaching out to her from beyond the grave. Chanthaly is the first horror film produced in Laos, and director Mattie Do's debut feature film.

click image to watch

Conversations with My Mother
(2018, Tibet & India, 6 mins)
Dir. Tsering Wangmo.

Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Wangmo watches her mother as the latter make tsampa, a staple food of herders. The camera studies this beloved subject in closeup, taking on a childlike curiosity to the most mundane of domestic moments (“Ama, why are your hands so rough?”). In asking to have personal memories recounted back to her, Tsering Wangmo realizes the differences between her life as an exile and her mother’s life as a refugee.

click image to watch

CUT
(2015, Jerusalem, 4 mins)
Dir. Dar Laor

An animated short described by the artist as her visual response to reading Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir.

click image to watch

Divorce: Iranian Style
(1988, Iran/UK, 76 mins)
Dir. Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini

A documentary following four Iranian women as they seek to divorce their husbands and present their cases before the Islamic authority. Filmed in fly-on-the-wall style and entirely on-location in a crowded courthouse in Tehran.

click image to watch

Escape / 逃离
(2017, China, 75 mins)
Dir. Lisa Hu Ran Ran

A zero-budget film about being young and transgender in modern China. Made when Hu was 18 years old, and with the help of her classmates, Escape’s exploration of youthful sexuality and gender identity—topics considered taboo in its home country—initially got the film barred for being screened at the school festival. The group then brought the film to the Beijing LGBT Centre where it was quickly picked up by newspapers and widely discussed in online forums.For more about the making of the film, read Hu’s profiles by the New York Times and UCLA where she is currently studying.

click image to watch

Four Women of Egypt (1997, Canada & Egypt, 89 mins)
Dir. Tahani Rached

An award-winning documentary about a group of four women in Egypt who come different religious beliefs and political backgrounds. Four Women of Egypt does more than chronicle invaluable microhistories of young women’s movements during the 1950s revolution, it also presents a candid portrait of female friendship.

click image to watch

Haenyeo: Wisdom of the Sea
(2018, Brazil & Korea, 65 mins)
Dir. Lygia Barbosa

Follow a Brazilian photographer on assignment to photograph the legendary female divers of Jeju Island, Korea. The women, known as haenyeos, are mostly grandmothers but they continue working even in the harshest conditions, diving for catch throughout the icy winter months. In recent decades, however, industrial fishing has accelerated and the small-scale, sustainable livelihoods of these women look more uncertain than ever.

click image to watch

I Was A Teenage Serial Killer
(1993, USA, 25 mins)
Dir. Sarah Jacobson

A young woman wreaks havoc on chauvinists. Quintessential underground, no-budget, riot grrrl B-movie.
USA access only. A VPN may help.

click image to watch

In My Room (2020, France, 20 mins)
Dir. Mati Diop

Filmed during the period of COVID-19 lockdown, this 20-minute fashion film (commissioned by Miu Miu) is shot entirely from Diop’s home. Scenes of days spent in isolation are accompanied by audio recording of conversations between Diop and her late grandmother who herself lived alone for 20 years.

click image to watch

Jackfruit
(2021, Germany, 34 mins)
Dir. Thuy Trang Nguyen

Full of tenderness and quiet gestures, Jackfruit tells the story of gender-fluid Mít caught between two worlds – the Vietnamese diaspora and queer Berlin. Filmmaker Thùy Trang Nguyễn (they/them) explores the themes of family and identity, queerness and crossing borders. Jackfruit is the second in a trilogy about the Vietnamese diaspora in Germany, after Roan (2018), and continues the artistic deconstruction of a colonial gaze.
Read an excerpt from a conversation with Thuy Trang Nguyen.

click image to watch

Knock Down the House
(2019, USA, 87 mins)
Dir. Rachel Lears

Like a superhero origins story, but for the women in the US congress.

click image to watch

Last Rescue in Siam / สาวน้อยผจญภัย
(2012, Thailand, 10mins)
Made by Empower Foundation Chiang Mai

An absolutely hilarious short film—shot in the style of black-and-white silent films of the 1910s—made by a group of sex workers in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It parodies the raid-and-rescue campaigns in the country, mocking the police force, social workers, and ‘hero’ NGOs as morons who are completely ignorant of the actual needs of sex workers. Written, shot, and filmed by members of the sex worker-led Empower Foundation and the collectively owned sex worker bar, Can Do Bar.

click image to watch

Le Clitoris (2016, Canada, 3 mins)
Dir. Lori Malépart-Traversy

A 3-minute tongue-in-cheek female-animated lesson in female anatomy. Equal parts fun and funny.

click image to watch

Madonna
(2014, Georgia, 58 mins)
Dir. Nino Gogua

An hourlong documentary about Madonna Naroushvili, the only female bus driver in the country of Georgia. Having worked in her chosen profession for over 30 years, Madonna—now in her late 50s—is a veteran of the capital city Tbilisi’s motorways. But here, as well as in a 2011 BBC interview, Madonna confesses that she struggled for long time to be accepted, especially by other women who faulted her for doing (and loving) a ‘man’s job’.

click image to watch

Mammas
(2013, USA, 3-min episodes)
Dir. Isabella Rossellini

Co-produced by screen legend Isabella Rosselini and the Sundance Institute, Mammas is 10-episode series exploring the maternal instincts of creatures (hamsters, toads, spiders, fish, you name it). Each video is no longer than three minutes but manages to be an unexpectedly informative and gleeful celebration of wild motherhood.

click image to watch

Momo / 모모
(2016, South Korea, 15 mins)
Dir. Yun Joo Chang

A short film about former girlfriends who reluctantly meet again to discuss custody of their cat, Momo. Now settling into new relationships and embarking on new journeys, someone has to make room for the innocent little one.

click image to watch

Mother of Many Children
(1977, First Nations Canda, 58 mins)
Dir. Alanis Obomsawain

Through oral histories of First Nations women, the documentary reflects on the centuries-old customs of these matriarchal societies and the meanings of cultural pride and resistance. By legendary American-born Canadian Abenaki decolonialist filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin who has over 50 documentaries to her name.

click image to watch

Our Mothers' Land
(2020, Indonesia, 55mins)
Dir. Leo Plunkett

Indonesian women have a long history of activism. Independent journalist Febriana Firdaus meets with rural Indonesian women who lead their communities’ anti-corporate grassroots protests.Read Febriana Firdaus’s report here.

click image to watch

Nice Colored Girls
(1987, Australia, 17mins)
Dir. Tracey Moffatt

Three young Aboriginal women cruise the city for a drunken white man. A pioneering short film about the urban life of Aboriginal women and its relationship with Australian colonial history.

click image to watch

Onibaba
(1964, Japan, 102 mins)
Dir. Kaneto Shindo

Set in 14th-century Japan, two women struggle for survival against the harsh poverty of civil war by ambushing, stealing from, and murdering men. A historical horror classic.

click image to watch

Period. End of Sentence.
(2018, India, 25 mins)
Dir. Rayka Zehtabchi

This documentary follows a group of female garment workers in Bangladesh over five years. The women are variously involved with workplace unions (notably the National Garment Workers Federation), alongside male colleagues, organising against unfair and illegal workplace treatment including beatings, withholding of wages, and threats. The film also presents glimpses into the families of the garment workers who lost their lives in the 2012 Tazreen factory fire and 2013 Rana Plaza collapse.For more films about women’s work, see 'global feminisms bibliography'.

click image to watch

Slingshot Prince
(2017, China, 19 mins)
Dir. Dandelion Lin

Content warning: sexual assault and violence. Set in rural Fujian in the 1990s, this 19-min short film follows a 12 year-old girl who outrightly refuses to be conventionally feminine. When male schoolmates decide to taunt and molest her, she retaliates with slingshot and some bloody vengeance. Directed by Dandelion Lin who describes a childhood where “being a girl was not valued, aspiring to be an artist unheard of, and homosexuality was forbidden”.For more films on female masculinity, see 'global feminisms bibliography'.

click image to watch

The Stepford Wives
(1975, USA, 114 mins)
Dir. Bryan Forbes

A family moves away from the city in pursuit of the American dream only to find that the perfect housewives in their new neighbourhood seem suspiciously subservient. Adapted from a 1972 satirical novel (and later remade in 2004 with Nicole Kidman), The Stepford Wives takes the patriarchal dream of idyllic domesticity and twists it into a suburban gothic nightmare.
USA access only. A VPN may help.

click image to watch

The Story of Kam Agong
(2018, Malaysia, 29 mins)
Dirs. Lawrence Jayaraj, Agnes Padan, and Wong Chin Hor.

19 years ago, Kam Agong died giving birth to her eight child at the Lawas District Hospital in the interior of Sarawak, Malaysia. It didn’t take long for her daughter and son-in-law, co-directors Agnes Padan and Lawrence Jayaraj, to realize that her death was the result of medical negligence which the hospital attempted to cover up. The Story of Kam Agong recounts the yearslong lawsuit that followed and the grieving family’s battle to lobby for better maternal healthcare in remote Sarawak.

click image to watch

The Story of Menstruation
(1946, USA, 10 mins)
Made by Disney

A short film about menstruation and personal hygiene used in American schools in the late 1940s. Commission of Kotex's parent company.

click image to watch

Sunday Beauty Queen
(2016, Philippines, 94 mins)
Dir. Baby Ruth Villarama

Beneath Hong Kong's glittering facade, Filipinas working as domestic helpers work in relative anonymity and for near slave wages. In a beauty pageant like no other in the world, five helpers give themselves makeovers for a day and gleefully reclaim their dignity.Read an excerpt from a conversation with two of the documentary's stars, Daddy Leo Selomenio and Mommy Judy Sison.

click image to watch

Suspiria
(1977, Italy, 93 mins)
Dir. Dario Argento

A wide-eyed American girl enrols in the prestigious all-female German ballet academy. Then, people turn up dead. A classic Italian giallo murder-mystery coated in German expressionist hues.
USA access only. A VPN may help.

click image to watch

Tank Girl (1995, USA, 104 mins)
Dir. Rachel Talalay

Set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future (actually, Australia in 2033) where water is scarce, Tank Girl has to fight her way free after being being kidnapped by an evil corporation. Adapted from the successful 80s comic of the same name, Tank Girl was a commercial and critical flop at the time of release. Its cyberpunk punk aesthetic and manic energy, however, quickly gained it a cult audience and birthed this iconic rebel feminist antihero.USA access only. A VPN may help.

click image to watch

Udita / Arise
(2015, UK, 75 mins)
Dir. Rainbow Collective

A group of local women learn how to make low-cost biodegradable sanitary pad and sell them to other women in their community, providing affordable access to feminine hygiene. A 25-minute documentary about menstrual equity and a female-centric micro-economy in the village of Kathikhera situated outside New Delhi, India. This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2018.For more films about menstruation, see 'global feminisms bibliography'.

click image to watch

Unfinished
(2014, Hong Kong, 7 mins)
Dir. Law Siufung

A 7-min autobiographical film poem by genderfluid bodybuilder and advocate Law Siufung. Made when Law was a 22-year-old at the University of Hong Kong, Unfinished is an act of queer self-documentation by “a nameless organism” creating a language to speak their story. More about this film.

Check out my
feminist media studies
instagram bibliography!

@a_bibliography_fems

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse