Friday March 8 — 1:30 pm

1hr 33min
Documentary
 

Preceded by:

Assembly

Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World covers a variety of media from print magazines to radio shows, creating a picture of the intertwined lines of communication. The film highlights how decentralized information was in the 70s, showing the audience how feminist media worked towards filling this gap. Narrated by Canadian rock icon Carole Pope, the documentary features media activists such as Susan G. Cole (Broadside Feminist Review), Grace Channer (Our Lives Black Women’s Newspaper) and Dykes on Mykes, the longest-running lesbian radio show in the world.

Directed by filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw, the documentary catches up with the many feminist storytellers from Halifax to Vancouver of the 1970s to 1990s, who took hold of cutting-edge media technology to document everything from violence towards women to how to insert a diaphragm. The mixed media in the film is an integral part of bringing the audience into the story, and the memories of the storytellers on screen. Self-described as “a film about an archive without an archivist,” Analogue Revolution beautifully conveys parts of otherwise forgotten history of the media’s place in the feminist revolution.

The documentary also addresses how even though feminist media was gaining traction, representation for women of colour was still sorely lacking. Power was only in the hands of white women—queer women and women of colour had to fight to have their voices heard and carve out spaces for storytelling that authentically represented their communities. “Analogue feminist media in the 70’s and 80’s was an intricate, world-changing, sophisticated network that anticipated the internet,” says Bociurkiw, who is also a professor of Media Theory at Toronto Metropolitan University. “Cutbacks and moral panics in the 1990’s changed all that. I’m glad to see that even Barbie is now identified with feminism – but young women also need to know what came before.”