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in development

Before #MeToo: The Story of a Feminist Media Revolution

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   It’s 1980. You’re with your all-woman video crew at International Women’s Day. Your Video Portapak weighs 18 pounds and takes 2 people to carry and operate. Apart from a TV station, you’re the only people – in a crowd of thousands - documenting this march on tape. These days, it’s almost impossible to imagine being the only person with a video camera at a major protest of any kind. But in 1980 you were not alone.  You were part of a huge network - of feminist video collectives, newspapers, radio shows, and publishers across Canada. This film is about the generation of feminist media activism that preceded the #MeToo movement. From Prince Rupert to Vancouver, from Nunavut to New Brunswick, feminist storytellers of the 1970’s and 80’s took hold of cutting-edge media technology to document everything from violence towards women to how to make a lamp from seal oil.The film will  also make connections with current generations of feminists, like Toronto’s South Asian Didihood Collective or Shameless Magazine , discussing collaboration, technology, race, ability and class, and the way forward for feminism in troubled times.

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Writer/Director: Marusya Bociurkiw

Running time: 75 mins.

Projected release date: 2022

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In my film practice I am drawn to silences, to recording and imagining refused, forgotten and unspoken memories. Remembrance creates new forms of ethical knowledge. Many of my films mobilize these new knowledges directly to east European diasporas (as well as to Ukraine), bringing experimental, political and scholarly questions to the diasporic settler project, producing rich discussion and ongoing collaboration with activists, scholars and artists in Ukraine and the global diaspora. My earlier films and videos transgress the conventional boundariesof the body, celebrating queer sex, questioning racial divides, and telling feminist stories across class, race and gndered lines.

Recent Films & Videos

 

"This Is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights & the War in Ukraine" Dir. Marusya Bociurkiw, 2015 Canada. 53 mins.

You’ve probably heard of Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution. You may not know that LGBT activists played a significant role. Join Ukrainian-Canadian Filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw as she follows the progress of the Euromaidan revolution, and the Russian occupation that

followed, through interviews with LGBT Ukrainians. From accounts of exile and harassment to stories of resistance, this film shows a side of the conflict in Ukraine the world has not yet seen.

WATCH: https://vimeo.com/135511376  PW: Oleksandra

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"Whats's the Ukrainian Word for Sex? A Sexual Journey Across Eastern Europe" Dir. Marusya Bociurkiw, 2010 Canada 35 mins.

Experimental documentary about notions of ethnic/queer shame and pride, set against the chaos of post-independence Ukraine.

WATCH: https://vimeo.com/99544602

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"Unspoken Territory", Dir. Marusya Bociurkiw 2001 Canada 60 mins.

A docu-drama exploring colonial moments in Canadian history via interviews and dramatic re-enactments.
 

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