Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed The World

by Marusya Bociurkiw

This documentary explores Canadian feminist storytellers from the 1970s to 90s used advanced media to document issues.

2023 · 1h34m · Canada

English

English subs

About the Film

When Zainub Verjee, a Vancouver-based film programmer started the InVisible Colours women of colour film festival in 1988, she fully expected it to continue for years. So did Linda Abrahams (Matriart Journal) and Zanana Akande (Tiger Lily Women of Colour Magazine). Cutbacks, racism, and technological change decimated a sophisticated, world-changing feminist media movement.

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 90s took hold of cutting-edge media technology to document everything from violence towards women, to how to insert a diaphragm. You’ll hear from feminist rock stars like Studio D’s Bonnie Sherr Klein (Montreal/Vancouver) and Sylvia D. Hamilton (Halifax); print collectives like Press Gang (Vancouver) and Our Lives: Black Women’s Newspaper(Toronto). Verjee tells the story of Canada’s first women of colour film festival; Nora Randall describes what it meant to create Pedestal, first feminist newspaper in Canada. Rare archival footage, like 70’s feminist gatherings in Montreal, lead to the film’s climax: draconian cutbacks to women’s and lesbian organizations across Canada, following the massacre of feminists at École Polytechnique in Montreal, (December 6, 1989). The film concludes with a resurgence: younger BIPOC feminists (Ella Cooper, Black Women Film!; Didhood Collective), using analogue strategies to create new feminist digital networks.

Upcoming Screenings

Stay tuned for upcoming screenings!

Festivals and Awards

2023

Toronto International Woman Film Festival, Best Historical Film

Co-Producer

Eponine Young

Director of Photography

Vanessa Abadhir

Editor

Eugene Weis

About the Director

Marusya Bociurkiw

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Marusya Bociurkiw got her start in media with 80’s feminist video collectives Women’s Media Alliance and Emma Productions. Since then, she’s directed or co-directed 10 videos/films, and has authored six books. Her most recent film, the award-winning “This Is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights & the War in Ukraine” (Canada 2015) screened in 12 countries and was translated into 4 languages. Her books have won or been shortlisted for several awards including CBC Writes, and Independent Publisher Award. She is Professor of Media Theory, and Founding Director of The Studio for Media Activism & Critical Thought at Toronto Metropolitan University.

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Other films by Marusya Bociurkiw

Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed The World

Marusya Bociurkiw

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