*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!
Returning from the hospital after the suicide bombing that killed her brother, eleven-year-old Nadia has an epiphany: she will pretend to be a boy, assuming her brother's identity and name in order to support her family.
In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where women and girls are not allowed to work outside the home, Nadia spends eleven years masquerading as her brother Esmerai before ultimately escaping to Europe and reclaiming her identity as a female. Back to Nadia is the fascinating story of gender and personal transformation in a society that leaves women with few options for freedom and autonomy.
The Bro Code, filmmaker Thomas Keith takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith breaks down a range of contemporary media forms that are saturated with sexism -- movies and music videos that glamorize misogyny; pornography that trades in the brutalization of women; comedy routines that make fun of sexual assault; and a slate of men's magazines and cable TV shows whose sole purpose is to revel in reactionary myths of American manhood. The message he uncovers in virtually every corner of our entertainment culture is clear: It's not only normal -- but cool -- for boys and men to control and humiliate women. By showing how there's nothing natural or inevitable about this mentality, and by setting it against the terrible reality of men's violence against women in the real world, The Bro Code challenges young people to step up and fight back against the idea that being a real man means disrespecting women.
Featuring interviews with Michael Kimmel, Robert Jensen, Shira Tarrant, J.W. Wiley, Douglas Rushkoff, Eric Anderson, and Neal King.
Reviews
"An excellent tool for classroom discussion about male socialization and the damaging impact of media and pornography on men and the women around them." - Paul Kivel, Author, Men's Work, Boys Will Be Men, and the Young Men's Work curriculum
"Filmmaker Tom Keith's powerful indictment of contemporary culture carries within it an undercurrent of optimism. Despite its horrific portrait of men behaving badly -- and dangerously -- the days of "Jersey Shore" manhood are numbered. When The Bro Code is screened on campuses, more male filmgoers than you might imagine will crack the code, reclaiming both healthy masculinity and their full humanity." - Rob Okun | Editor, Voice Male Magazine
"Tom Keith's The Bro Code is a vital look at what makes us men tick and how we can find our way through the maze of modern masculinity to an identity which is balanced, healthy, and fulfilling." - Thomas Matlock | Founder, The Good Men Project
DVD (With English Subtitles) / 2011 / () / 58 minutes
What happens when women decide to love their bodies, no matter what size? This documentary short by fat acceptance activist Margitte Kristjansson features two of her fellow fat acceptance activists, Keena and Jessica, who share their experiences of being judged by society for their decision to not bow to how women are expected to look ˇV including being harassed and discriminated against because of their size. Undeterred, they talk about how the fat acceptance movement has allowed them to become empowered through fashion, explore the intersection of race and fatness, and how they found community support through social media and blogs.
Reviews
"Keena and Jessica share their experiences of people judging their mere existence just because they're fat, becoming empowered through fashion, the intersection of race and fatness, and finding community." - Bitch Magazine
"The Fat Body (In)Visible is a compelling look at the world of fat acceptance and what it's like to be a fat woman in America today." - Author Harriet Brown, Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle With Anorexia
"Long overdue!" - Bill Fabrey, Founder of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
Throughout history, boys have been taught that the things that make them men -- good men -- are transcendent ideals like courage and honesty and integrity, while girls have been led to believe that a woman's moral compass lies somewhere between her legs, literally. In this alternately hilarious and enraging new film adaptation of her bestselling book, The Purity Myth, pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti shows how this moral double standard is alive and well today thanks to a well-funded coalition of virginity-obsessed conservatives bent on vilifying feminism and rolling back women's rights.
Valenti trains her sights on what she calls the "virginity movement" -- an unholy alliance of evangelical Christians, political activists, and policy wonks who have been spreading irrational fears about women's sexuality to shape government policy, public education, and even popular culture in their own traditionalist image. And whether her focus is the exploding popularity of dad-and-daughter "purity balls," or the millions of dollars American taxpayers shell out each year for failed abstinence-only programs, Valenti's baseline target is the same: the myth that the worth of a woman depends on what she does or does not do sexually. In the end, The Purity Myth shows why commercial culture's hypersexualization of women is too serious a problem to be left to ideologues, arguing that the antidote to our pornified culture is not a set of reactionary policies that replace one form of sexism with another, but embracing women's autonomy and power.
Reviews
"Fierce and funny... In-your-face feminism is what Valenti is about." - Antonia Zerbisias | The Toronto Star
"Valenti shines a bright light on the cultural misogyny that -- yes, even today -- keep women struggling for the simple justice of owning our bodies, embracing our sexuality, and fully assuming the right to own our own lives." - Gloria Feldt | Author, The War on Choice | Planned Parenthood Federation of America
DVD (With English Subtitles) / 2011 / Approx. 60 minutes
The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity.
In striking visual detail, The Codes of Gender explores Goffman's central claim that gender ideals are the result of ritualized cultural performance, uncovering a remarkable pattern of masculine and feminine displays and poses. It looks beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that focus on biological difference or issues of objectification and beauty, to provide a clear-eyed view of the two-tiered terrain of identity and power relations.
With its sustained focus on how our perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman get reproduced and reinforced on the level of culture in our everyday lives, The Codes of Gender is certain to inspire discussion and debate across a range of disciplines.
Being thin, pretty and sexy brings happiness. Style over substance. Young girls receive these messages hundreds of times each day. But who sets these impossible beauty standardsˇXand how can they be changed? In this eye-opening documentary, filmmaker Nicole Clark, a former Elite International fashion model-turned champion for young girls and their self-esteem, gets in the face of advertisers and fashion industry leaders and calls for something new: integrity and responsible media for our youth.
COVER GIRL CULTURE pairs images of girls and women in television and print ads with footage from the catwalks and celebrity media and juxtaposes shocking interviews with models and editors from major magazines like Teen Vogue and ELLE with revealing insights from parents, teachers, psychologists, body image experts and most importantly, the voices and heartfelt testimonies of girls themselves.
With rarely seen access into the beauty, fashion and advertising industries, the film addresses issues like today's increasingly invasive media and sexualization of girls and how consumer culture serves to disempower young women. An important examination of how advertising and the cult of celebrity have deeply and negatively impacted teens and young women, COVER GIRL CULTURE is a wake-up call for consumers and everyone affected by media.
Reviews
"A hugely important piece for young girls everywhere.... [H]elps us understand why it is so imperative to guide our girls towards a healthy appreciation for the unique and beautiful aspects of themselves as individuals." - Mariel Hemingway, Actress
"Clark does not focus on the manipulation of women's bodies, but of our minds.... Funny... [and] heartbreaking." - Celeste Fraser Delgado, MOLI View
What constitutes a family? How is the typical American family defined? How has the notion of gay families evolved over the past decades? Is there such a thing as a typical gay family?
This fascinating and sometimes shocking documentary profiles the diversity of gay and transgender households in America today. With the aspirations and diverse ways of life for gay and alternative households changing so quickly, is society adapting fast enough to keep up with them?
Each section of this video profiles different scenarios and cultures and shows how alternative lifestyles have lead to acceptable and happy lives. There are two mother, and two father families. There are shelters for children and young adults that have been "tossed out" of their traditional families because of sex changes and alternate lifestyles. How they have coped with family rejection and non-acceptance is described. This documentary will have an elementary school, high school, and university version available in late fall.
These days, ambitious young women in China feel they have to Westernize their appearance through plastic surgery in order to get ahead. They undergo lengthy, painful, and expensive surgery and hospitalization, often financed by their parents who can ill afford it.
To accomplish the "right look," they visit surgeons to have their legs lengthened, their eyes westernized and their breasts enlarged. Some of the women end up with terrible physical problems as a result. It is a startling fact that every week some 16,000 Chinese undergo face surgery. The film includes a beauty contest for "Miss Nip & Tuck," in which all the contestants are women who have had plastic surgery. Many of their families have spent their life savings to pay for this investment in their daughters. The winner's family paid over $3,000 (which represented 2 years' salary) for her various plastic surgeries. The surgeons are happy to accomodate this business when one operation to lengthen legs costs $10,500. When one compares the attitude in China towards women during the Cultural Revolution when they were discouraged from dressing in anything but Mao jackets, the phenomenon is a startling illustration of China's rapid push into modernity.
How do our families influence our relationship with our own bodies? How do American pop culture's standards of beauty get inside our hearts and heads? In what ways can sport and the drive for fitness actually make us sick rather than healthy?
In this courageous, deeply personal new film, Diane Israel examines American culture's toxic emphasis on thinness, beauty, and physical perfection. Israel, a Boulder-based psychotherapist and former champion triathlete, talks candidly about her own struggle with eating disorders and obsessive exercising, fearlessly confronting her own painful past as she tries to come to terms with American culture's unhealthy fixation on self-destructive ideals of beauty and competitiveness.
The film lends context to Israel's personal odyssey with fascinating insights from athletes, body builders, fashion models, and inner-city teens, as well as prominent cultural critics and authors such as Eve Ensler, Paul Campos, and Naomi Wolf. In a special bonus feature, Israel talks in detail about where she is in her recovery 2 years after the filming of Beauty Mark.
Reviews
"Beauty Mark is a real gem. It is a unique, personal, insightful and powerful film. You have created a film which can touch both the mind and the heart." - Bill Baker, Former Chief Executive Officer, Thirteen/WNET New York
"... A great way to start out National Eating Disorders Awareness Week." - Erin Hurley, Men's and Women's Swim Coach at Grinnell College
"I was so intensely moved by watching Beauty Mark -- I had no words. It hit home with me on many different levels -- as a guidance counselor, daughter, mother, human... It gave me so much to think about and to use every day. I really thank you for sharing it." - Amy D., Guidance Counselor at Arlington High School
Awards
Audience Choice Award, 2008 Estes Park Film Festival
Audience Choice Award, 2008 Moondance International Film Festival
Despite the achievements of the women's movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important documentary, Thomas Keith, professor of philosophy at California State University-Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated at the very heart of our popular culture.
The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: including the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the mainstream of American popular culture.
Along the way, Generation M forces us to confront the dangerous real-life consequences of misogyny in all its forms - making a compelling case that when we devalue more than half the population based on gender, we harm boys and men as well as women and girls.
By Julie Gustafson and Teenage Girls' Documentary Project
Nearly a decade in the making, this refreshingly honest film documents the challenges and desires of a group of young women in New Orleans by letting them film their own stories. As this diverse group of young womenˇXtwo teenagers from the Desire housing projects, a single mother from the working-class suburb of Belle Chase across the river, and two girls from the most prestigious private high school in New OrleansˇXmake short films about their own desires, this provocative film records the intimate dramas of their changing lives.
Sensitively and intelligently interweaving the girls' short videos throughout the film's narrative, Desire pivots around the intimacy and risk that the two generations of filmmakers share together and with the audience. Addressing everything from sex and contraception to the impact of educational and material opportunities on their futures as women, Desire presents a nuanced and authentic look at modern young womanhood.
Reviews
"A touching and fully textured collective portrait. Gustafson's understated compassion makes DESIRE an affecting coming-of-age portrait, offering an intimate look into the minor tragedies and triumphs in the lives of a handful of young women. Highly recommended." - Video Librarian
"...far surpassed my expectations...a very real look into the lives of modern teenage girls. The insights provided by DESIRE can be used at many levels. Highly recommended for high schools, colleges, and adults who deal with teens." -Educational Media Reviews Online
"A film so full of spirit and life you don't want it to end." - Barbara Kopple, Academy Award-winning Documentary Filmmaker
"Presents the most insightful portrayal of teenaged girls' decision-making and sexuality ever available in film or print. Gustafson and the young ladies (her teenage collaborators) together capture moments that brilliantly speak to American understanding of race and class, as well as the whole process of growing ˇV up. Poignant and touching, the film is suitable for women's studies, sociology, American & cultural history, urban and rural history." - Susan Tucker, Tulane University
"Reaches acoss all racial, ethnic and class lines to discuss teens, girls, sex, early parenthood-- and above all--choice. This is a "must see" for teens and those who love and support them." - Pat Pauozzi, CNM, Dr. Phd, Healthy Teen Network
"Desire casts an illuminating light on the inner world, the dilemmas, the evolving sexual identities of teenage girls. Freud didn't know what women want ˇV Gustafson gives us an insightful, sometimes disturbing idea of what teenage girls desire ˇV whether it's about going to college versus having a job, stopping to smoke, liking women instead of men, or deciding between having a baby or finish high school." - Berenice Reynaud, Senses of Cinema
"A very moving, bittersweet, and intimate look at the impact of culture, class, race, and family values on young women determined to take charge of their own lives." - Booklist
"A vibrant portrait of teenage life. Viewers will identify with the young women. ...A valuable discussion starter for high school collections." - Meghann R. Matwichuk, School Library Journal
By director Deepak Leslie and producer Jana Winter
Shedding new light upon issues of global diversity, this documentary focuses on the extent to which a "fairness fetish" has permeated Indian society. The preference for lighter, fairer skin is examined in various areas including the fashion industry and arranged marriages. Evidence of the fair skin ideal is traced back to the great epics of India, the Ramayana and Mahabarata, through the British Raj, up through contemporary society. Today, whitening/bleaching facial creams manufactured by multinational companies such as L'Oreal and Clinique accompany Indian-made products such as Fairever and Fair and Lovely. Alongside these products are advertisements warning young women that if they are dark they will never find a caring husband, they will never get a job, and they will never live the life of which they have dreamed. With a focus on the emotional and psychological impact, this film addresses the historical and contemporary factors that contribute to the pressures thrust upon Indian women by a society obsessed with fair skin.
Festivals
Memphis International Film Festival, 2004
Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, 2005
Northeastern Anthropological Association Ethnographic Film & Video Festival, Lake Placid, NY, 2005
Heard Museum Film Festival, Arizona, 2005
American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington DC, 2005
This compelling new documentary focuses on the sexual dilemmas and difficult life choices young girls face as they come of age in contemporary American culture. Challenging long-held myths about girlhood, the film draws on the insights of girls themselves to explore and shed light on their actual lived experience as they navigate our increasingly hyper-sexualized society. The voices of a diverse range of girls are supplemented with accessible analysis from leading experts on girls and sexuality, including Lynn Phillips, author of Flirting with Danger; Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Director of the Body Project; and Deborah Tolman, author of Dilemmas of Desire
Review
"Girls, Moving Beyond Myth features a wide range of articulate and engaging experts discussing core developmental issues that girls must face in a post-modern, media-saturated world. A diverse group of girls speak with honest voices about their true thoughts and often anguished feeling. This video is educational in the finest sense of the word. It elucidates and motivates." - Mary Pipher, Pyschologist, Author, Reviving Ophelia
Trading Women enters the worlds of brothel owners, trafficked girls, voluntary sex workers, corrupt police and anxious politicians. Filmed in Burma, China, Laos, and Thailand, this is the first film to follow the trade in women in all its complexity and to consider the impact of this 'far away' problem on the gobal community.
Narrated by Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie, the documentary investigates the trade in minority girls and women from the hill tribes of Burma, Laos and China, into the Thai sex industry. Filmed on location in China, Thailand and Burma, Trading Women follows the trade of women in all its complexity, entering the worlds of brothel owners, trafficked girls, voluntary sex-workers, corrupt police and anxious politicians. The film also explores the international community's response to the issue.
The culmination of five years of field research, Trading Women is the first film to demonstrate to viewers the relationship of the trade in drugs to the trade of women. The film dispels common beliefs about the sex trade, such as: "The problem is the parents - it's part of their culture to sell their daughters;" "The sex trade exists because of Western sex tours;" and "They sell their girls for TV's."
"We take the audience behind the tourist tales and stereotyped news coverage to reveal the reality behind the myths," said David A. Feingold, the noted documentarian who wrote and directed Trading Women. "We show how much of what the audience thinks they know about the issue is much more complex than they imagined."
Thirty years ago, there was a thriving sex industry in Thailand, but there were no minority girls in it - what happened? The film cites the destruction of the traditional upland economy by a combination of well-meaning development and opium suppression programs in Thailand, and civil unrest, economic dislocation, and political repression in Burma as the answer to this question. These environmental and political factors have resulted in threats to both the physical and cultural survival of the highland minorities. Today, while hill tribe girls are perhaps thirty percent of the total number of sex workers in Thailand, they are disproportionately represented relative to their total numbers in the population. Moreover, they are employed in the lowest, most exploitative part of the industry.
Trading Women examines the choices that hill tribe women make, and how these choices are constrained by the economic and political conditions in which they find themselves. The documentary explores how the politics of Burma determines the supply of women to the sex industry in Thailand and how the lack of citizenship for hill tribe women puts them at a greater risk for trafficking.
Trading Women also addresses the international response to the issue. "We find that it is an issue that, in the words of one United Nations official generates 'far more heat, than light'," said Feingold. The United States has passed a law that would block World Bank loans or other non-humanitarian aid to any country that does not meet America's minimum standards for combating trafficking. "Some believe this might be counter-productive - bringing little help to the victims and pushing the problem further underground," said Feingold.
Trading Women conveys that this is not a simple issue with simple answers. It is an issue that affects the futures not only of young tribal women, but also of their communities.
In Biemann's latest video, she traces the routes and reasons of women who travel across the globe for work in the sex industry. By using the latest images from NASA satellites, the film investigates the consequences of the U.S. military presence in South East Asia as well as European migration politics. This video-essay takes an earthly perspective on cross-border circuits, where women have emerged as key actors and expertly links new geographic technologies to the sexualization and displacement of women on a global scale. By revealing how technologies of marginalization affect women in their sexuality, "Remote Sensing" aspires to displace and resignify the feminine within sexual difference and cultural representation.
Reviews
"An artistic triumph, Bieman's tape provides a searing account of the parasitic networks of global, sexual trafficking in the digital age." - Timothy Murray, CoCurator of CTHEORY Multimedia, Cornell University
"Biemann navigates a unique path through critical dialogues on the global sex trade, feminist geography and media activism and her video will become a natural resource for anyone interested in these areas." - Lisa Parks, Dept. of Film Studies, UC Santa Barbara
Notes
Whitechapel Gallery, London
Govett-Brester Art Gallery, New Zealand
Feminale International Women's Film Festival, Cologne
Finger Lakes Envonmental Film Festival, Ithaca College
This is one of the first explorations of the Samoan fa"afafines, boys who are raised as girls, fulfilling a traditional role in Samoan culture. The film shows how in the large Samoan family there may be one or two fa"afafines who are not only accepted but appreciated. They cheerfully share the women"s traditional work of cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly. Today"s fa"afafines are becoming more westernized and look more like drag queens.
Dance has always been an important part of Samoan culture. From an early age, the fa"afafines dance the female role, and many continue to dance as entertainers in nightclubs. We meet Cindy, a popular dancer, who has fallen in love with a representative of the Australian High Commission. They live together in the Australian compound, which lands him in trouble. He is transferred to Australia, but gives up his job and returns to be with Cindy.
Several anthropologists, including Derek Freeman and Tom Pollard comment on the phenomenon. Paradise Bent brings up issues of culture and gender and the complexities of sexual identity.
Review
"An exhilarating investigation into the interconnection and clashing of societies, mores and social rules." - The Boston Phoenix
Notes
Boston Gay & Lesbian Festival 2001
Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals, 2000: New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Honolulu Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Video Festival, 2000
Margaret Mead Film Festival, 1999
Banff Television Festival, 2000
New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, 2000
Award
Silver Plaque, Chicago International Television Awards, 2000
The journey towards self acceptance for gays and lesbians is difficult in any culture, but for those in a racial minority it becomes even more so.This stylish and moving portrayal of gays of Asian descent in Australia explores the relationship between race and sexuality. China Dolls probes the uncomfortable reality of racial stereotyping and discrimination in the gay world through interviews with Asian men who talk frankly, and often humorously, of their experiences living within a double minority. The filmmaker himself tells a highly personal story of his journey from denial to self acceptance. China Dolls themes of diversity and acceptance make it a contemporary, universal story.
In a critical examination of changing concepts of beauty and sexuality in modern China, Woman Being illustrates how a flood of Western pop culture is adversely affecting women's expectations and self-worth. Revisiting her hometown Chengdu after a long absence, videomaker Wen-Jie Qin traces the impact of a newly booming beauty industry in a country where thirty years ago women were beat up for wearing makeup. Combining interviews and footage from glamour photo studios and television, Woman Being explores the rise of a new super-feminine, highly sexualized ideal. "This hard-nosed look at women in contemporary China makes a persuasive case for how the economies of pleasure, beauty, and consumption are transacted through exploiting women's bodies and images. It provides a sobering prognosis of what Ofreedom' might mean for women in China today." - Marina Heung, Baruch College, CUNY
Reviews
"Insightful and distinctive...shows how young women's passion in grasping Western concepts of beauty reflects China's economic transformation..." - Vivian Huang, Asian Cinevision
"This candid film takes you into the heart of Chinese women's lives." - Richard Rogers, Harvard Film Study Ctr
The 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and the parallel Forum (NGO) that took place in Beijing assembled the largest global gathering of women in recorded history. Beyond Beijing, a personal document of the epoch-making events, captures their exciting spirit and shows the strength of the worldwide movement to improve the status of women. Moving back and forth from NGO workshops convened by grassroots activists to ceremonies commemorating women's art and achievements, the film also includes informal cross-cultural get-togethers, compelling North-South exchanges and candid interviews with individual participants.
Reviews
" 4 stars. Recommended...an emotional first-hand account." - Video Librarian
"...a joyous kaleidoscope...communicates the incredible buzz felt by the 30,000 women attending." - Nikki van der Gaag, New Internationalist
"Absolutely first-class." - Hassan Ferdous, UN Dept of Public Information
DVD (Color, With Discussion Guide) / 1996 / 42 minutes
A highly-acclaimed film, A Different Image is an extraordinary poetic portrait of a beautiful young African American woman attempting to escape becoming a sex object and to discover her true heritage. Through a sensitive and humorous story about her relationship with a man, the film makes provocative connections between racism and sexual stereotyping. The screenplay of A Different Image is published in Screenplays of the African American Experience, edited by Dr. Phyllis R. Klotman.
Reviews
"Extraordinary, a fresh and clear expression of an acute sensibility." - Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
"The most popular film at the NWSA conference ...a fine combination of image, sound and content." - Linda Bierds, University of Washington