Rape and sexual harassment for decades. Weinstein is outed.

From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories 
By Rowan Farrow. 
New Yorker, October 10, 2017.
Includes recording of Weinstein verbally coercing and harassing a young woman in hotel. Asia Argento and other women speak out

"For more than twenty years, Weinstein has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. This has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but previous attempts by many publications, including The New Yorker, to investigate and publish the story over the years fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence. Too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, monetary payoffs, and legal threats to suppress these myriad stories".

Rowan Farrow, son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.

(Rowan on Allen: "He's my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression.")

No longer whispered but out - raged.

The myth of the powerful man and the beautiful women behind him, unraveled. 
How many other movie moguls do the same and have done so historically in the film business?

Harvey Weinstein, movie mogul and predator, revealed. 

Using the same excuses as Arnold Schwarzenegger did to rationalize his behavior that his behavior was formed in the 60s (when he was a teenager) and 70s. Bad behavior dies hard.

Ashley Judd spoke out and began the repercussions that brought down Weinstein this week.

 “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.”               -  Ashley Judd 

I am a 28 year old woman trying to make a living and a career. Harvey Weinstein is a 64 year old, world famous man and this is his company. The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.
— From Lauren O’Connor‘s memo

Meryl Streep  and Jennifer Lawrence have spoken out and dozens of women.  Saturday Night Live SNL kept quiet cutting material about Weinstein in their show with Gal Gadot hosting September 30. Women stick up for each other— SNL and other male written shows (Colbert, Fallon) tried to ignore or bury it. 

Now, they can't.

Ovarian Psycos, directed by Joanna Sokolowski et Kate Trumbull-LaValle (USA| 2016) at Films de Femmes in Créteil on March 18.

Ovarian Psycos, directed by Joanna Sokolowski et Kate Trumbull-LaValle (USA| 2016) at Films de Femmes in Créteil on March 18. The Youth Jury came on stage to award the prize at final ceremony. This film that was also shown to 100 high school students in the Créteil area with a lively debate afterwards.
https://www.facebook.com/FestivaldeFilmsdeFemmes/
Members of the Ovarian Psycos will be in San Francisco on April 11 at City College of San Francisco for workshops and screening of the film.

"Ovarian Psycos - Documentary" is about a biking brigade composed on young women who ride to protest violence against the women in their community in East Los Angeles. The collective reveals personal testimony of growing up in East LA and the pressure put on them by families to conform. Biking is their way of showing solidarity with other women.
https://www.facebook.com/TheOvarianPsycosDocumentary/

Grand Jury Prize at Festival International de Films de Femmes in Créteil

The Grand Jury Prize at Festival International de Films de Femmes in Créteil went to "Lipstick under my Burkha", directed by Alankrita Shrivastava (India| 2016). The film was censored in her country Special Mention (Mention spéciale) went to "People That Are Not Me", directed by Hadas Ben Aroya (Israel | 2016). Ben Aroya is the producer of the film and the main character named Joy, which is about and herself and her friends in Tel Aviv that don’t fit into the usual categories – which she calls “non- Unicorns” leading “unauthentic lives”.
Festival International de Films de Femmes.
 https://www.facebook.com/FestivaldeFilmsdeFemmes/

Public Prize for best feature film (PRIX DU PUBLIC MEILLEUR LONG MÉTRAGE FICTION) at Créteil Films de Femmes

The Public Prize for best feature film (PRIX DU PUBLIC MEILLEUR LONG MÉTRAGE FICTION) at Créteil Films de Femmes went to "Sami Blood" (Sami Blood, Amanda Kernell , Suède, Danemark, Norvège | 2016) directed by Amanda Kernel. Kernel attended Danish Film School and is set in the 1930’s in Sweden. The Sami people, the indigenous people that live in Northern Scandinavian countries and coast of Russia, and their colonial appropriation to conform to the dominant culture. The Sami were not allowed to speak Sami in school and were often shamed. Shot in seven weeks it was usual for Kernel to have 13 takes for each of the scenes, primarily to make the film authentic for the Sami people.
https://www.facebook.com/FestivaldeFilmsdeFemmes/

Dorothy Arzner’s films find reception in France

Dorothy Arzner on the set

Dorothy Arzner’s films were marginalized by male film historians until the advent of women’s film festivals in the mid 1970’s. The first major and largely anecdotal accounts of American cinema by male film historians omitted or glossed over her career:  Andrew Sarris: “The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968” (1968- Arzner completely omitted); Kevin Brownlow’s “The Parades Gone By” (1968); Lewis Jacobs, “The Rise of the American Film” (1939, reprinted 1967). Her films have been the subject of scholarship and film retrospectives, richly documented in essays and books by feminist film theorists and historians since the 1970’s.

When Arzner was rediscovered in women’s film festivals in the 70’s, in part promoted by British feminist film theorist Claire Johnston, her historical place in film history was well motivated by the body of work she had done between 1929-1943 above all how her characters challenge the fixed gender roles of women in film and open these films up to contradictions. They show women transgressing their roles and seeking fulfillment. Feminist film theory was taught at universities and colleges since the 80's  and her work is currently discussed, especially with a slew of new retrospectives.

Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball in 'Dance Girl Dance'

Dorothy Arzner is relatively unknown in France and feminist film theory nearly non existent. So it is with some alarm that she was introduced rather poorly by the Cinématèque Française for an upcoming retrospective with problematic - and protested - program notes on a revised ahistorical account of Arzner.

Libération journalist Philippe Garnier reviewed six of her films in 2003 while in Los Angeles and was called on to write the program notes for a retrospective of her films at the Cinématèque Française from March 22 to April 1, a bastion of male film history with only six retrospectives dedicated to women since 2005 out of around 300. Fortunately, Garnier does not speak for “Créteil Films de Femmes” whose parallel Arzner retrospective (March 10-19) precedes the program af Cinématèque Française. A round table with myself representing the Cinema and Women’s Studies Department at City College of San Francisco and Cahiers du Cinema film critic Ariel Schweitzer was held for the audience who would later continue on at Cinématèque Française. This discussion was crucial in bringing this work to its proper light. Créteil has previously showcased Arzner’s work on two occasions in the 80s since the inaugural festival of 1979 in Sceaux, which later moved to Créteil.

Katherine Hepburn in 'Christopher Strong' 1933

 Garnier’s overview of Arzner’s work supplies superficial character analyses from her films, which generally fragment in meaningless rhetoric. There are problematic comments about Arzner’s appeal to “militant lesbians”, and swipes at Arzner and  Zoë Akins (Akins wrote scripts for  Arzner)  for their “closeted” careers in the male dominated studio system of the1920’s and 1930’s Hollywood. (Lesbian) feminists that emulate Arzner or “recent attempts to make her a secret heroine of the feminist struggle” are problematic for Garnier. Arnzer is characterized as a  “butch” director who spent her time advancing the careers of actresses. He criticizes Arzner’s male characters who are either “pathetic or alcoholic” and elevates erotic pre-code scenes with Pansy Gray (Ruth Chatterton) in “Anybody’s Woman” (1930) who straddles a ukulele in an erotic pose (1930) , which he considered her best film, or Bubble’s (Lucille Ball) in “Dance Girl Dance” (1940) who performs a hula dance for a lecherous nightclub owner. Garnier's introduction of Dorothy Arzner for the Cinémateque Française retrospective to spectators who do not know about her work is annoying, as are snide attacks on lesbian feminists who identify with her public image, or the screening of her films in academia and educational institutions and festivals.

Clara Bow in 'The Wild Party'

Why elevate an historical figure while vulgarizing the work? Why commodify a retrospective with revisionist history?  Phillipe Garnier claims that Arzner was successful because of two reasons: she had“f---k you money” to play with , i.e. was so wealthy she really didn’t need to work, like Zoe Akins and it infers they bought their way into the business. Secondly, she became a director as a result of a network of women artisans in the film industry in the 1920’s. However, it was Arzner’s competent efforts and the contacts she made at Paramount that made her director before the union jobs that came with the big studios after this period. That Arzner remains after this time and for 20 years in the emerging Hollywood studio system is extraordinarily remarkable. 

CinéFemme/Annakarinaland: Experimental Films by Moira Sullivan

CinéFemme Films from Eressos, Greece, home of Sappho.

Since 1997 I have made films in Eressos, on the island of Lesbos. These are collaborative efforts with islanders and travelers. Two are mythological journeys contextualized with film clips from Maya Deren's At Land, Alien, Jaws and Bergman's The Seventh Seal . Both made in Eressos, Lesbos in Greece during the summers of 1997 and 1998:

• At Land Too (1997) inspired by the film At Land (1945) by American avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren. Includes the so called 'lesbian scene' which has inspired a wave of lesbian iconography 25 years after Deren's death in 1961, including the work of Barbara Hammer. At Land Too is a modern saga made with the infamous Gaul beach lesbians - "Salopes de la Mer". Featuring "Rock Time", and "The Dirty Old Man on the Beach".

• Vagina Dentata (1998) is made with Teutonic and Anglosaxon beach lesbians and concerns the myth of a vagina with teeth. Modern films such as Jaws and Alien have reproduced the saga and given teeth a bad reputation. Featuring the original Vagina Dentata tribe at Eressos, starring H.R.C.,and a flock of dancing Grecian urns. 10 seconds shown on Canal Plus 1998.

Selected for Bay Area Burning Man Film Festival, and projected from a VCR on the roof of a car against a garage. Paris has 400 screenings (séances) a week. I remember a book for young Francophiles where the kids on the block projected a film against a sheet on a garage years ago.

ASSORTED SHORTS

© Moira Jean Sullivan

• The Lunchmaker , (1999) Featuring Antipodes lesbians. A sea nymph serves up two mermaids from the sea who each do a dance.
• Shadows (2001) Two shadows, survivors of a shipwreck, saunter along Sappho's beach.
• Sappho Postcards (2002) Viking lesbians recite poems by Sappho in her garden. This is a spoof on a Swedish filmmaker named Roy Andersson noted for his deadpan long takes of meaningless uncomfortable silence. Featuring virtually brain dead lesbians.
• Les Lesbiennes Terribles (2004) Two mischievous lesbians meet up with a mercenary driver. When good things happen to misfits.
• The True Story of Antiope (2005) Featuring Les Parents Terribles. Lykos and Dirce take away Antiope's home and children, and later suffer a horrible fate. Featuring coral reefs, goat herd(er) and a brood of hungry birds.
• Million Dollar Panties (2005) Inspired by outdoor laundry lines and adopted headgear on Skala Eressos and Sigri.
• Hypnerotomachia Nausika: Nausika's Struggle for Love in a Dream (2009). Boston Underground Film Festival. Filmed in Sigri, Lesvos.

 

Other films

• WORLD PREMIERE! On the Highway with My Girlfriend (Stockholm, Sweden. 5 minutes). Director: Moira Sullivan. Selected for Denver Underground Film Festival. 2005.
• Et in Arcadia Ego - Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition, 2009.
• The Buddhacator, 2009 what can happen upon an awakening.
• Art of Decluttering for the Summer Solstice, 2009. What we leave behind that wasn't worth saving.
• The Queer Palm Death Quest,  Cannes, 2012. What we leave behind that others want when we are dead.
• SoKo in San Francisco accepting the Twisted Palm. SoKo was in San Francisco to pick up the award she deserves from Cannes, 2012.

  

  SoKo at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, June 2012
  ©Moira Jean Sullivan

CinéFemme/Annakarinaland Home

Three films directed by women nominated for 2017 Academy Awards

2017 Academy Award nominees 

This year's Oscars was not as white but still very white, and still very male. Only two films directed by women were nominated for Academy Awards--Ava DuVernay ("13th") and Maren Ade ("Toni Erdmann"). One short live action film, "Sing" directed by Kristof Deák and Anna Udvardy won an Oscar. That's it. 

Only four women have been nominated for best director since 1929.  Only Kathryn Bigelow, has won for "Hurt Locker" (2008). Lina Wertmuller was nominated in 1976 for "Seven Beauties", Jane Campion in 1993 for "The Piano" and Sofia Coppola in 2003 for "Lost in Translation". Let's talk odds here for winners: 1 in 88. 

It's hard to note the invisibility of women at the Academy Awards since there are so many women working as actresses or producers in film, however they are not being nominated for directing. Andrea Arnold's Grand Prix winner at Cannes in May 2016 was snubbed - "American Honey". 

2016 women wore mostly red

In the group photo for last year's Oscars, many of the women are wearing red. We have a long way to go for nominated films that salute both race and gender, for nominating filmmakers who are people of color and women. 

The mixup about Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight" winning Best Picture this year was deplorable, still it won that award, and Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Jenkins). Using innovative cinematography and editing it is about a young gay black boy growing up with his drug addicted mother and befriended by an older black male who is a "good" drug dealer. He grows into a teenager, and a man. Compare this with "La La Land", a white heterosexual musical set in LA , so unrealistic and illusional it was able to gather 13 nominations and six wins just for that. We can't escape the world we live by keeping it safe from authentic representation; only in Hollywood is that possible.

Overused words by winners this year : amazing, journey, honored, stories, luck, God. 

Moira Jean Sullivan
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
FIPRESCI
Swedish Film Critics Association
Professor of Cinema, City College of San Francisco