Feminist Anti-Psychiatry: The Other Side of Underneath

Made in 1972, Jane Arden’s The Other Side of Underneath was the only British film of the decade to be solo-directed by a woman. A boldly feminist film in its engagement with, and rejection of, the contemporary place of women in British society, the film is also unique for its take on mental illness. Arden’s […]

cléo reviews: Hot Docs 2019

Last year, on the 25th anniversary of the festival, Hot Docs reached gender parity in its programming for the first time in its history. For the 2019 edition, it surpassed that waypost, with 54% of its films being helmed by women. Naturally, many highlights of the festival come from the diversity of women’s voices. A […]

Notes on Being: Exploring Identity at the Images Festival

The annual Images Festival begins this week in Toronto, and we are very excited to be co-presenting the program Notes on Being. Featuring works by Onyeka Igwe, Cauleen Smith, Basma Alsharif, Chantal Akerman, Abigail Child, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Kevin Jerome Everson and Christopher Harris, the selection is—in the words of programmer […]

“I think we’re alone now…: Genre Subversion in Le temps de l’avant“

The idea of women alone without men is enough to generate fear. What will they talk about, what will they do, outside of the confines of social standards and the rules of powerful patriarchs? In films by men we see this frequently—often enough to create a loose semi-genre defined by Emily Yoshida as “women-alone-horrors”[i] or […]

Barbra Streisand: Cinema of Attraction

Barbra Streisand’s third directorial outing, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), thought of as a typical, self-indulgent romantic comedy, was not received favourably. A loose remake of the 1959 French film of the same name by André Cayette, Streisand’s version concerns the romance of a frumpy professor (played by the director herself) and her metamorphosis […]

Wild White West: Colonialism and Barbara Loden’s The Frontier Experience

In 1970, Barbara Loden made her directorial debut with Wanda. A landmark of feminist filmmaking, Wanda features Loden as the titular character, a woman who drifts through life with a series of abusive men. Loden never made another feature film. She did, however, complete two shorts in 1975: The Boy Who Liked Deer and The […]