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Women's Studies

BELLY OF THE BEAST

By Erika Cohn, Angela Tucker, Christen Marquez, and Nicole Docta

Filmed over seven years with extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, BELLY OF THE BEAST exposes a pattern of illegal sterilizations, modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons.

When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal sterilizations in California's women's prisons, they wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes -- from inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations -- primarily targeting women of color. This shocking legal drama captured over 7-years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, demanding attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2020 / 81 minutes

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GLOW: A WILD RIDE TO HEAVEN

Director: Gabriel Baur

"Someone who glows so brightly is not going to grow old," Fellini once prophesied about Irene Staub, aka Lady Shiva, one of the greatest of all Swiss divas. Thanks to her aura and talent, many doors opened for Irene during Zurich's exuberant years between 1968 and the late 1980s. Discovered by a pioneer of Swiss fashion design, she made the break from streetwalking to being part of the fashionable art scene. Finding work as a model, she also pursued her dream of becoming a singer, starting out in a legendary Zurich underground band. But Lady Shiva lived life in the fast lane; torn between the stress and strain of success, a yearning for freedom, and self-destructive urges, she died far too young under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

Using never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with prominent contemporaries, director Gabriel Baur brings us back to a vibrant age of boundless possibilities, in which the sky seemed the only limit for people like Lady Shiva...an age that to this day still kindles a yearning in us.

DVD (German with English Subtitles) / 2020 / 100 minutes

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I'M MOSHANTY - DO YOU LOVE ME?

Director: Tim Wolff

The world's second largest island, Papua New Guinea is one of the most dangerous places to be a woman, with 70% reporting that they experienced domestic violence and sexual violence before the age of 15. Sorcery accusation killings and family violence take the lives of thousands of women every year and HIV infection rates are the highest in the Pacific. Transgender women are most often homeless, unemployed, denied education and medical care and living under the constant threat of robbery, rape and murder.

I'm Moshanty - Do You Love Me? Is a musical tribute to the late, legendary South Pacific recording artist and transgender activist Moses Moshanty Tau and the LGBTQI community of Papua New Guinea. With their lives still haunted by colonial-era sodomy laws and deadly religious bigotry, Moshanty stands as a beacon of hope for the transgender and LGBTQI community of the entire South Pacific.

Filmed over a weekend in the fall of 2017 and including her last live performances, the film celebrates the transgender activist with a mother's heart, teeth of gold and a voice like a coronet. Hear her journey from a tiny Motuan village to the top of the regional music industry. In her last interview, she shares her personal truth and her greatest desires as a woman with her millions of fans.

In 2017, a diagnosis of throat cancer threatens to silence the activist and a failed surgery leaves her unable to sing. Finally, an entire nation, from ordinary citizens to Ministers of Parliament, is asked to grieve for their brightest light and their most heavenly voice. Who could ever sing the songs of Moshanty?

DVD (English, Tok Pisin, With English Subtitles) / 2020 / 57 minutes

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ALL WE'VE GOT

By Alexis Clements

ALL WE'VE GOT is a personal exploration of LGBTQI women's communities, cultures, and social justice work through the lens of the physical spaces they create, from bars to bookstores to arts and political hubs.

Social groups rely on physical spaces to meet and build connections, step outside oppressive social structures, avoid policing and violence, share information, provide support, and organize politically. Yet, in the past decade, more than 100 bars, bookstores, art and community spaces where LGBTQI women gather have closed. In ALL WE'VE GOT, filmmaker Alexis Clements travels the country to explore the factors driving the loss of these spaces, understand why some are able to endure, and to search for community among the ones that remain. From a lesbian bar in Oklahoma; to the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center in San Antonio run by queer Latinas; to the WOW Cafe Theatre in New York; to the public gatherings organized by the Trans Ladies Picnics around the US and beyond; to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, the film takes us into diverse LGBTQI spaces and shines a light on why having a place to gather matters. Ultimately, ALL WE'VE GOT is a celebration of the history and resilience of the LGBTQI community and the inclusive spaces they make, as well as a call to action to continue building stronger futures for all communities.

DVD (Color) / 2019 / 67 minutes

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BLACK FEMINIST

By Zanah Thirus

BLACK FEMINIST is a lively and illuminating documentary that explores the double-edged sword of racial and gender oppression that Black Women face in America.

Frustrated by the lack of intersectionality in the women's movement and the misogyny plaguing the Black liberation movement, filmmaker Zanah Thirus set out to shine a light on the complexities and power of Black feminism. Featuring interviews with a wide range of scholars, writers, business owners, veterans and comedians including former Ebony Editor-in-Chief Kyra Kyles, professor Carrie Morris, and author Tami Winfrey Harris, the film lays bare the everyday lived experiences of Black Women everywhere.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 53 minutes

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NICE CHINESE GIRLS DON'T: KITTY TSUI

By Jennifer Abod

Nice Chinese Girls Don't is a portrait of Kitty Tsui -- an iconic Asian American lesbian, poet, artist, activist, writer, and bodybuilder who came of age in the early days of the Women's Liberation Movement in San Francisco.

In Nice Chinese Girls Don't, Kitty Tsui recounts her emergence as a poet, artist, activist, writer, and bodybuilder in the early days of the Women's Liberation Movement in San Francisco. She narrates her experience of arriving to the States as an immigrant from Hong Kong by way of her own original poetry and stories.

Tsui wrote the groundbreaking Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire, the first book written by an Asian American lesbian. She is considered by many to be one of the foremothers of the API, Asian Pacific Islander, lesbian feminist movement.

In 2018, APIQWTC, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women & Transgender Community honored her with the Phoenix Award for lifetime achievement. In 2019, her alma mater, San Francisco State University inducted Tsui into the Alumni Hall of Fame. Her forthcoming books include Nice Chinese Girls Don't, Battle Cry: Poems of Love & Resistance, and Fire Power: Poems of Love & Resilience. Tsui currently lives in Oakland, California, and is writing a screenplay, Unmasked.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 20 minutes

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NO TIME TO WASTE: THE URGENT MISSION OF BETTY REID SOSKIN

Directed by Carl Bidleman

Celebrates legendary 99-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story.

NO TIME TO WASTE celebrates legendary 99-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story. The film follows her journey as an African American woman presenting her personal story from a kitchen stool in a national park theater to media interviews and international audiences who hang on every word she utters.

The documentary captures her fascinating life—from the experiences of a young Black woman in a WWII segregated union hall, through her multi-faceted career as a singer, activist, mother, legislative representative and park planner to her present public role.

At the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park, Betty illuminates the invisible histories of African Americans and other people of color. Her efforts have changed the way the National Park Service conveys this history to audiences across the U.S., challenging us all to move together toward a more perfect union.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 52 minutes

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NORMAL GIRL, A

Directed by Aubree Bernier-Clarke
By Shawna Lipton, Pidgeon Pagonis

A NORMAL GIRL brings the widely unknown struggles of intersex people to light through the story of intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis.

Activist Pidgeon Pagonis was born intersex, not conforming to standard definitions of male or female, and experienced genital mutilation as a child. Now Pidgeon is fighting the medical establishment, seeking to end medically unnecessary surgeries and human rights abuses on intersex people in the United States and around the world.

An estimated 1.5% of the population is born with intersex traits. While most of these babies are healthy, their bodies are treated as a medical emergency. It is common practice for doctors to perform genital surgeries on intersex infants--often with disastrous results including total loss of genital sensation, lifetime synthetic hormone dependence, and being assigned a gender with which they do not identify.

Through the story of Pidgeon's remarkable journey and fight for bodily self-determination, A NORMAL GIRL brings the widely unknown struggles of intersex people to light.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 14 minutes

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SHUSENJO: COMFORT WOMEN AND JAPAN'S WAR ON HISTORY

Director: Miki Dezaki

One of the most heated issues in Japan and Asia today is over something that occurred 80 years ago: the Japanese Imperial Army's sexual enslavement of an estimated tens of thousands of Korean women and others in military brothels during World War II. Many nationalist Japanese conservatives (with the surprising support of Western media influencers) believe the women were mostly willing prostitutes, not 'sex slaves', and that the estimated number is far smaller than are claimed. But contemporary historians, activists and - most significantly - the surviving victims and their families, believe otherwise; the denial of their suffering so long ago has created an entirely new trauma.

Director Miki Dezaki, a second-generation Japanese American who learned about comfort women from his Japanese immigrant parents, questions why accounts in the Western media have often sided with the Nationalists. With a keen eye for detail and precision, he interviews historians, advocates and lawyers who discuss the evidence: historical documents related to the Japanese military's direct role in managing the brothels, and harrowing testimonies by former comfort women. 'Shusenjo' is a deep dive into this impassioned subject - bringing to light the hidden intentions of the supporters and detractors of comfort women.

DVD (English, Japanese, Korean with English Subtitles) / 2019 / 120 minutes

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ARCHIVETTES, THE

By Megan Rossman

For more than 40 years, the Lesbian Herstory Archives has combated lesbian invisibility by literally rescuing history from the trash.

Founded in the 1970s in a New York City apartment, The Lesbian Herstory Archives is now the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. For more than 40 years, the all-volunteer organization has striven to combat lesbian invisibility by literally rescuing history from the trash.

Frustrated by misogyny and homophobia within academia, Deborah Edel and Joan Nestle co-founded the archives for those conducting research, both professional and personal. Over the years, the organization has witnessed many of the major milestones in LGBTQ+ history and has weathered several storms. Today, with its founders in their seventies, the archives are facing new challenges, including a change in leadership and the rise of digital technology.

Exploring the fascinating origins of the organization, THE ARCHIVETTES is a tribute to second-wave feminism and intergenerational connection, as well as an urgent rallying cry for continued activism in a politically charged moment.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 61 minutes

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FEMALE PLEASURE

By Barbara Miller

#FEMALE PLEASURE accompanies five extraordinary women around the globe fighting to reclaim female sexuality.

The film introduces us to author Deborah Feldman from Brooklyn's Hasidic community, sex educator Vitika Yadav in India, manga artist Rokudenashiko in Japan, Somali activist Leyla Hussein, and former nun Doris Wagner in Europe, courageous women who are all struggling to end the harmful cultural practices like genital mutilation and the shaming of the female orgasm that lie at the root of rape culture and patriarchy. Not only highlighting the issues that have contributed to the sexual marginalization of women, the film also calls these atrocities, embedded within cultural and religious norms, by their actual names: rape, assault, child trafficking, abuse. We witness these female activists who were taught to be silent confronting the very entities that have oppressed them.

Both an urgent call to action and an empowering plea for self-determined joyful female sexuality, #FEMALE PLEASURE is ultimately an inspiring tool to help women, no matter their cultural or religious background, to reclaim their bodies and celebrate their sexuality without shame or suffering.

DVD (English, Japanese, German, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 101 minutes

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TO A MORE PERFECT UNION: U.S. V. WINDSOR

Director: Donna Zaccaro

To A More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor tells a story of love, marriage and a fight for equality. The film chronicles two unlikely heroes, octogenarian Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, on their quest for justice: Edie had been forced to pay a huge estate tax bill upon the death of her spouse because the federal government denied federal benefits to same-sex couples...and Edie's spouse was a woman.

Deeply offended by this lack of recognition of her 40+ year relationship with the love of her life, Edie decided to sue the United States government - and won. Beyond the story of this pivotal case in the marriage equality movement, the film also tells the story of our journey as a people, as a culture, and as citizens with equal rights.

Windsor and Kaplan's legal and personal journeys are told in their own words, and through interviews with others, including Lillian Faderman, a leading scholar on LGBTQ history, and Evan Wolfson, who first at Lambda Legal and later as founder of Freedom to Marry was the godfather of marriage equality in the US and now worldwide. Legal observers, including Jeffrey Toobin from CNN and Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio, also lend their insights.

DVD / 2018 / 63 minutes

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WE ARE THE RADICAL MONARCHS

Directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton

Follows the Radical Monarchs, a group of young girls of color on the frontlines of social justice.

Set in Oakland, a city with a deep history of social justice movements, WE ARE THE RADICAL MONARCHS documents the Radical Monarchs--an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of color, aged 8-13. Its members earn badges for completing units on social justice including being an LGBTQ ally, the environment, and disability justice.

The group was started by two fierce, queer women of color, Anayvette Martinez and Marilyn Hollinquest as a way to address and center her daughter's experience as a young brown girl. Their work is anchored in the belief that adolescent girls of color need dedicated spaces and that the foundation for this innovative work must also be rooted in fierce inter-dependent sisterhood, self-love, and hope.

The film follows the first troop of Radical Monarchs for over three years, until they graduate, and documents the Co-Founders' struggle to respond to the needs of communities across the US and grow the organization after the viral explosion of interest in the troop's mission to create and inspire a new generation of social justice activists.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 4-12, College, Adults) / 86 minutes

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YOURS IN SISTERHOOD

By Irene Lusztig

YOURS IN SISTERHOOD is a performative, participatory documentary inspired by the breadth and complexity of letters that were sent in the 1970s to the editor of Ms.- America's first mainstream feminist magazine. The film documents hundreds of strangers from around the U.S. who were invited to read aloud and respond to these letters written by women, men and children from diverse backgrounds. Collectively, the letters feel like an encyclopedia of both the 70s and the women's movement- an almost literal invocation of the second-wave feminist slogan "the personal is political." The intimate, provocative, and sometimes heartbreaking conversations that emerge from these performances invite viewers to think about the past, present, and future of feminism.

DVD (Color) / 2018 / 101 minutes

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FEMINISTA: A JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF FEMINISM IN EUROPE

By Myriam Fougere

FEMINISTA is a lively and inspiring feminist road movie that explores the largely unrecognized yet hugely vibrant pan European feminist movement. Filmmaker Myriam Fougere joined an international group of young feminists who were traveling across twenty countries – from Turkey to Portugal, by the way of the Balkans, to Italy, Spain and Portugal – to make connections and unite forces with other women. She witnessed these determined activists participating in political gatherings, supporting homegrown local feminist struggles, exchanging strategies, and inventing new ways to resist and fight for change. Revealing how feminism is transmitted from one generation to another, FEMINISTA provides a rare glimpse into a widespread feminist groundswell movement, possibly one of the largest and unrecognized mass political movements that is very much alive and well throughout Europe today.

DVD (Color) / 2017 / 60 minutes

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FINE LINE, A (EDUCATIONAL VERSION)

Directed by Joanna James

Explores why less than 7% of head chefs and restaurant owners are women, when traditionally women have always held the central role in the kitchen.

Featuring intimate interviews with world-renowned chefs like Dominique Crenn, Lidia Bastianich, Cat Cora, Elena Arzak, Elizabeth Falkner, Maria Loi, Sylvia Weinstock, Michael Anthony and others, A FINE LINE explores pressing issues faced by women in the culinary arts and across all industries, including sexual and workplace harassment, access to capital, unequal pay, and lack of paid family leave and affordable childcare.

An uplifting American success story about perseverance, family, and food, A FINE LINE follows the personal story of Valerie James, a small town restaurateur with a larger than life personality who raised Joanna as a single mother on a mission to do what she loves while raising two kids and the odds stacked against her.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 56 minutes

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CATCHING SIGHT OF THELMA & LOUISE

Directed by Jennifer Townsend

Explores the same women's and men's reactions to the groundbreaking film, "Thelma & Louise", 25 years ago and today.

Powerful, authentic, and timely, CATCHING SIGHT OF THELMA & LOUISE dives off the edge into the truth of women's experience in the world. It revisits the journey of Thelma & Louise through the lens of viewers who saw that iconic film in 1991 and shared intimate, personal, stories at that time. The same women and men were tracked down 25 years later. Are their responses different now? Has anything changed in the way women are treated?

Interview commentary mixes with clips from "Thelma & Louise" to reveal why this cinema classic continues to resonate with millions of viewers, the world over. Christopher McDonald, who played Thelma's husband, and Marco St. John, who played the truck driver, offer an insider's viewpoint.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 86 minutes

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REVIVAL, THE: WOMEN AND THE WORD

By Sekiya Dorsett

THE REVIVAL: WOMEN AND THE WORD chronicles the US tour of a group of Black lesbian poets and musicians, who become present-day stewards of a historical movement to build community among queer women of color. Their journey to strengthen their community is enriched by insightful interviews with leading Black feminist thinkers and historians, including Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Nikki Finney, and Alexis Deveaux. As the group tours the country, the film reveals their aspirations and triumphs, as well as the unique identity challenges they face encompassing gender, race, and sexuality. This is a rarely seen look into a special sisterhood - one where marginalized voices are both heard and respected.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2016 / 82 minutes

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SIBERIAN LOVE

By Olga Delane

In rural Siberia, romantic expectations are traditional and practical. The man is the head of the household. The woman takes care of the housekeeping and the children. But filmmaker Olga Delane doesn't agree. While she was born in this small Siberian village, as a teenager she migrated to Berlin with her family, and 20 years of living in Germany has changed her expectations. SIBERIAN LOVE follows Delane home to her community of birth, where she interviews family and neighbors about their lives and relationships. Amusing and moving, this elegant film paints a picture of a world completely outside of technology, a hard-farming community where life is hard and marriage is sometimes unhappy - but where there are also unexpected paths to joy and family togetherness. Through clashing ideals of modern and traditional womanhood, SIBERIAN LOVE is a fascinating study of a country little known in the US and of a rural community that raises questions about domesticity, gender expectations, domestic abuse, childcare, and romance. Excellent for anthropology, women's studies, sociology, Russian and Eastern European Studies.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 82 minutes

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VOICES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FROM THE US SOUTH

By Maha Marouan and Rachel Raimist

When one thinks of the American Deep South, the image of veiled Muslim students strolling the University of Alabama campus is the last thing that comes to mind. VOICES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FROM THE US SOUTH is a documentary that explores the Muslim culture through the lens of five University of Alabama Muslim students. The film tackles how Muslim women carve a space for self-expression in the Deep South and how they negotiate their identities in a predominantly Christian society that often has unflattering views about Islam and Muslims. Through interviews with students and faculty at Alabama, this film examines representations and issues of agency by asking: How do Muslim female students carve a space in a culture that thinks of Muslims as terrorists and Muslim women as backward?

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 32 minutes

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