Girl power: Wild Wonder Women on screen in Wan Chai

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the Time’s Up movement against sexual harassment, even more attention is being paid to the portrayal of women in cinema.

Today the kinds of roles women can play include kick-ass heroines like Wonder Woman, chilling antagonists such as Amy from Gone Girl, and scary but brilliant Miranda Priestly from Devil Wears Prada.

But for the next few weeks, ThinkYoung Audiovisual Laboratory (or THY Lab) and China Women’s Film Festival want to take you back to the groundbreaking films of the 1970s, movies which heralded “the destruction of male-dominating society and the ground-breaking rise of women during that era.”

THY Lab is a film production company that makes documentaries about social and cultural issues based on social research.

They will be screening four films, one every Tuesday, from January 23 to February 13 that show women as protagonists who disrupt the status quo.

Here’s the selection.

Coffy (1973), January 23

Pam Grier plays the title character in Coffy, an African American nurse who decides to wage a one-woman killing spree against inner-city drug dealers after her sister becomes their latest victim.




Being Twenty (1978), January 30 

In Italian erotic drama Being Twenty, Lia and Tina hitchhike their way to Rome to find a commune where they can live a life of free love, only to get entangled with prostitution, the police, and an aggressive gang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dw81F_NhBw

Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974), February 6

For those of you who really want to see a woman kick ass, Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs is about a Japanese cop called Agent Zero — equipped with a red gun and a set of red handcuffs — who has to go undercover to find a politician’s kidnapped daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQWEerEiNVk

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), February 13

The fourth and final film that will be shown is W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, a Serbian film that pays homage to the work of psychologist Wilhelm Reich. The film, which explores sexual repression and social systems, is matched with a story about a Yugoslavian girl’s affair with a Soviet celebrity skater, where the latter, unable to reconcile his inner conflicts ends up decapitating her.




Screenings will take place in Room 2717, 27/F, Shui On Centre, Wan Chai, at 6:30pm every Tuesday on January 23 to February 13.

Entrance is free, but those who want to attend any of the screenings must contact lab@thinkyoung.eu.



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