The six events in the screening series take feminist film and video work as constitutive of archival futures; a future imperfect: what will be seen to have been. The films and videos in these programs come from the last three decades of the 20th century, when feminist political organizing was inextricable with women’s cultural production.
This screening series emerges from the SSHRC-funded project “The Personal is Digital: Remediating and Digitizing Canada’s Intergenerational Feminist & Queer Media Heritage”, co-directed by Drs. Marusya Bociurkiw and Jonathon Petrychyn, with additional curation by Lexie Corbett and administration by Em Barton.
Our screenings include conversation with the artists post-screening.
Check out our trailer for a sneak-peek at our programming.
Our Events
This is the Feminist Archive:
Bodies at Risk
September 20, 2024
The Commons @ 401 Richmond St W, Toronto
“Feminist videos from the 1980s and 90s present us with an uncanny sense of history repeating itself. The context of these works of female-born or masculine female bodies-at-risk is not always explicit. Perhaps we can see it now: a message to the future.” – Maruysa Bociurkiw
We were honoured to welcome filmmaker and artist, Helen Lee, in conversation post screening.
This is the Feminist Archive:
Fantasy/Media/Memory
October 24, 2024
The Commons @ 401 Richmond St W, Toronto
“This program features film and video that take media and memory as their subject. It focuses particularly on non-narrative experimental art works that explore how feminism is broken down and reworked relative to photography and the cinematic image”
We welcomed artists Marnie Parrell and Elizabeth Chitty, in conversation post screening.
This is the Feminist Archive:
Club Classics
November 19, 2024
Deluxe Screening Room/Innis College @ 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto
“Throbbing. Pulsing. Sweating. Clubs and bars have been central spaces for queer and trans people to find and build community. But rapid gentrification and the increasing cost of living are closing what few queer nightlife spaces remain. These videos document Toronto’s lost queer nightlife.”
We welcomed artists Judith Doyle, Lilian Radovac, Jorge Lozano, Samuel Lopez, and Kathleen Pirrie Adams for a robust post-screening panel.
This is the Feminist Archive:
The Gloria Tapes
January 23rd, 2025
The Commons @ 401 Richmond St W, Toronto
“This 4-part series, drawing from the aesthetics of the soap opera, was inspired by Lisa Steele’s experience working at a women’s shelter for many years. Combining the self-reflexive strategies of video art at the time, with acute, documentary-like representations of female poverty and resilience, this uncanny work creates of the artist a double, revealing, to both artistic and feminist communities, that which is unfamilar and strange”
Lisa Steele joined Marusya Bociurkiw on stage for a conversation post screening.
This is the Feminist Archive:
How it Started/Where its Going
March 18, 2025
Deluxe Screening Room/Innis College @ 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto
The fifth event in our series highlighted the past and present work of renowned film and video artists Midi Onodera and Vera Frenkel. Our screening featured Ville – quelle ville?, C’est a qui cette ville?, The Secret Life of Cornelia Lumsden, and Frenkel’s WIP film As if by Chance.
Following the screening, Marusya Bociuriw was joined by Midi Onodera and Vera Frenkel for a conversation with artists and audience.
This is the Feminist Archive:
Feature + Short
May 2nd, 2025
CFMDC’s CineCycle
“Our final event of the season featured Shelley Niro’s Honey Moccasin followed by our new short documentary, Walking the Walk: The Toronto Women’s Bookstore, created in house for the series.
Shelley Niro joined Marusya Bociurkiw via zoom for a conversation post screening.
Marusya Bociurkiw 