FemFlix is set to open at Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), at the University of Sydney, on 10 August 2016. It will feature an overlooked decade of feminism, the 1990s, that highlighted zine counter-culture, post-punk gestures, and cyberfeminists on screen.
It will feature the work of Australian filmmakers who led the new wave of feminism through screen culture via the advent of the personal computer and the world wide web. The exhibition will showcase live action shorts, digital interactive works, animation and video from the 1990s.
The exhibition will open on 10 August (6-8pm) at the SCA Galleries, by Samantha Lang – President of the Australian Directors Guild. Lang is part of Screen Australia’s new taskforce on gender equity, making her first film in the 90s feminist era. She says, “One of the things I have realised is that while my film The Well was made almost 20 years ago, and it went to Cannes where I was the only woman director in competition that year and therefore it was significant, it is almost impossible to find copies of The Well today. That got me thinking that as women film makers, we must make sure our work is archived. We need to ensure our work is visible, so that it is part of our social and cultural history.”
One of the curators of FemFlix is Dr Jacqueline Millner – Associate Dean of Research at SCA. Millner notes, “Nineties feminism was sophisticated and influential through its affinities with queer culture, activism and experimentation with new digital technologies,” “Femflix plugs us into the infectious, subversive energy of 90s feminism as expressed through its manifold screen cultures from short film to animation, computer games to digital works, and reminds us of powerful feminist visions that remain all too relevant today.”
Co-curator Jane Schneider, also an independent filmmaker, said ““It was a time when queer aesthetics exploded onto the screen, an exciting new generation of Indigenous filmmakers hit the mainstream, and women were making edgy, experimental work as well as feature films that competed successfully at the Cannes International Film Festival”.
The opening of FemFlix will include live performances from Tina Havelock Stevens (The White Drummer) who will play a sonic tennis match with Liberty (guitarist from The Mumps). VNX Matrix will also be premiering their updated cyberfeminist manifesto, while also celebrating their 25th anniversary. Also look out for a Q&A of Janet Merewether’s Jabe Babe: A heightened life on 17 August from 6pm, and the Sydney launch of Women and Animation Australia (WANDAA) on 24 August from 6-8 pm, both at the SCA Auditorium.
FemFlix runs from 10 August to 3 September 2016
Visit http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/femflix for full event details
Image Credit: Jabe Babe: A heightened life
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