“Before there was #MeToo, there was Toronto’s Diva: A Quarterly Journal of South Asian Women, Montreal’s Groupe Intervention Vidéo and Dykes on Mykes Radio Show, and the women-led Studio D of the National Film Board of Canada. The list extends into the hundreds. All Canadian, all feminist, and all trailblazing media of the late 60s to mid-90s.” – Image et Nation Film Festival Catalogue
This feature-length documentary traces the rise and fall of analogue feminist communications that preceded the MeToo era. From Halifax to Vancouver, feminist storytellers of the 1970s to 1990s took hold of cutting-edge media technology to document everything from racism in the women’s movement, to how to insert a diaphragm. The film includes rare archival footage, like African American feminist poet Audre Lorde’s speech at the Third International Feminist Book Fair (Montreal 1988) and pro-choice demonstrations in the 1980’s, leading to the film’s climax: draconian cutbacks to women’s and lesbian organizations across Canada, following the massacre of women at École Polytechnique in Montreal, 1989. Cutbacks, racism, and moral panics then decimated an intricate, sophisticated, and world-changing feminist media movement. The film concludes with a resurgence and a сall to action: young BIPOC feminists using analogue strategies to create new feminist digital networks.
Filmmaker in attendance for a Q&A following the film
In partnership with the Kule Institute
