FILMS BY DOMAIN
Identity
Throughout history, women have been encouraged to fit into pre-ordained roles, and operate within the larger social and political contexts of their time. This goes back centuries. Womens’ rights have been historically restricted and withheld, requiring women to fulfill the expectations of their gender. Female differentiation and dissent doesn’t occupy an easily recognized space societally, yet one imagines there has always been a desire to separatethe collective female identity from an individual female identity. In 2022, when gender identity is not defined with such rigidity, the categorical sorting of it feels archaic, and the phrase “collective female identity” feels nebulous and obsolete. In the current day, “identity” is something one finds and redefines; it values the personal over the political, the individual over the collective.
The films in this category all explore stories that push past predetermined identities, and challenge viewers to question where identity is created in the first place. These films untether their characters from the social and/or political expectations of their times, and in doing so, allow for fascinating examinations of identity-- where it is derived, how it can be shaped, and where it can take us.
