More Media Resources: Films

I've just added these to my locate and watch list...

V-Day's Own DVD: Until the Violence Stops - V-Day's Emmy award-winning documentary Until The Violence Stops with additional scenes and content added including segments on Juarez, Mexico and Afghanistan. (I've ordered this and will watch it once I arrive in the states for my holiday.)

The Vagina Monologues - the HBO special

Women Make Movies's suggestions - films made by women that address issues of violence against women, including Senorita Extraviada, the documentary about missing and murdered women in Juarez.

Eat Drink, Man Woman

Honoring Our Voices - six Native women talk about the choices they have made to overcome the hardships of family violence and end the cycle of abuse and silence

Letter to My Mother - is a short film made on digital video about the transformative effect that the women's march had on young feminists. I use the story of myself and three of my friends (women shortly out of college and hungry to understand the real world and their place in it) as a template for looking at how the energy and inclusion of direct action made young women, finally, feel like a part of the feminist movement not a by product.

Maya is a powerful film by filmmaker Digvijay Singh that depicts community silence around violence against young girls and the power of a young boys questioning. It could be a way to open up stimulating discussion on the involvement of men in the movement to end violence against women.

Ophelia's Opera, Abiola Abrams is a feminist filmmaker based in Harlem, New York. Her objective is to use film as a medium to teach and empower while entertaining. Her short film Ophelias Opera, of which there are 2 versions (15 minutes & 28 minutes), is an experimental film about a woman who uses voodoo to take revenge escape and an abusive relationship. Knives in My Throat, a 54 minute documentary tells the story of a self-abusive manic depressive young woman who seeks to escape through hip hop poetry. Abiola Abrams aims to give a voice to the voiceless and discuss the un-discussable using film as a vehicle.

Rape Is... - a documentary about a human rights outrage that leaves millions of women, children and men in a state of terror and pain

Real Women Have Curves - the story of a first generation Mexican-American girl balancing her mainstream ambitions and her cultural heritage

Soldier's Girl (2003) - starring Troy Garrity, son of Jane Fonda, is the true story of a young soldier beaten to death for falling in love with a transgendered nightclub performer. Our monologue "They Beat the girl out of my Boy" was written by Eve after meeting and talking to the woman whose story this movie is based on. It won a Peabody Award and was nominated for 10 other awards including 3 Golden Globes, 2 Emmys and a GLAAD.

The Day I Became a Woman This film has won many international prizes at Toronto, Venice, and Chicago film festivals and was heralded as one of the most brilliant works of art by director Ms. Marziyeh Meshkini. It is a series of three vignettes and portrays Iranian women at three distinct phases in their lives. The stories are very poignant and powerful representations of the cultural biases against women in Iran.

Warrior Marks - poetic and political film by Pratibha Parmar, executive produced by Alice Walker about female genital mutilation (I have the book by Walker and Parmar about their experience of making the film called Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women.)

list source: V-Spot for V-Day campaign organisers