Archive screening, There is Power in the Material

Movie from the Cinenova collection

Movie from the Cinenova collection

Thursday 6 December 2018, 6-8pm

To coincide with the Juliet Fleming’s and Sarah-Joy Ford’s exhibition of collaborative work, ‘Hard Craft’, There is Power in the Material is a screening of feminist film and video from the Cinenova collection. The moving image works explore the politics of domestic spaces and highlight the use of craft media within feminist and queer protest movements.

Keep your laws off my body, Catherine Gund & Zoe Leonard, USA, 1990, 12mins
Intimate scenes of gentle sexuality and domesticity set to the mechanical cadence of a projector (evoking a feeling somewhere between the repetitive labour of a sewing machine and violence of a machine gun) are juxtaposed with images of police and sirens to highlight the alarming intrusion of America’s laws on queer people and women’s bodies in healthcare, sexual expression, and desire. 

Home Movie, Jan Oxenberg, USA, 1972, 10mins 

Home Movie intercuts old home movie images – of a small girl dancing and later playing with a doll and still later performing as a cheerleader at a football game – with footage of a gay rights march and women playing tackle football. 

17 Rooms (Or What Do Lesbians Do in Bed?), Caroline Sheldon, UK, 1985, 10mins 

What do lesbians do in bed?: with a star-studded soundtrack, we’re shown women doing everything in bed from knitting and drinking tea to having raucous pillow-fights. 

Video 28, Vera Productions, UK, 1988, 20mins 

A celebration and a record of some of the many fight back events against Section 28 of the Local Government Act. A focus for campaigning and an inspiration to action. 

Cinenova is a volunteer-run charity preserving and distributing the work of feminist film and video makers, founded in 1991 following the merger of two feminist film and video distributors, Circles, and Cinema of Women, both founded in 1979. Cinenova currently distributes over 300 titles that include artists’ moving image, experimental film, narrative feature films, documentary and educational videos, from the 1920s to the late 1990s.


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News 2018Paul Stone