Female authenticity takes centre stage at… | Little White Lies

Festivals

Female authen­tic­i­ty takes cen­tre stage at Sheffield Doc/​Fest 2021

12 Jun 2021

Words by Lydia Rostant

A woman with vibrant red hair, wearing a red top, looking directly at the camera against a black background.
A woman with vibrant red hair, wearing a red top, looking directly at the camera against a black background.
Three films at this year’s fes­ti­val com­bined female-cen­tred sto­ries with inspir­ing acts of protest.

For bet­ter or for worse, film reflects the world we live in. The line-up at this year’s Sheffield Doc/​Fest has some seri­ous wis­dom to impart – regard­ing the treat­ment of elder­ly peo­ple, the sub­ju­ga­tion of minori­ties and the chron­ic under­fund­ing of female-led projects. Cov­er­ing a range of sub­jects, from a star roller-skater to an age­ing Pan­tomime Queen, and span­ning a broad cross-sec­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, from New York’s Low­er East Side in the 70s to a spot between two over­pass­es in present-day North Lon­don, these films con­tain vivid and rig­or­ous depic­tions of society.

Among oth­er things, Guen Murroni’s Storm­skater asks the ques­tion: who is allowed to take up space? Her short, which fea­tures the astute and pas­sion­ate roller skater Ishari­ah John­son, oth­er­wise known as Storm­skater’, tack­les the ever-press­ing issue of polic­ing space and the ways in which non-white com­mu­ni­ties are restrict­ed and oppressed. Murroni’s astute sense of polit­i­cal rea­son­ing is no doubt the result of her back­ground in writ­ing and activism. As a mem­ber of the direct action group Sis­ters Uncut’ (who recent­ly organ­ised the vig­il for Sarah Ever­ard and the Kill the Bill’ cam­paign), Mur­roni has helped reclaim social hous­ing and advo­cate for a more egal­i­tar­i­an social structure.

Her work repeat­ed­ly con­cerns itself with issues of belong­ing, and locates its mar­gin­alised char­ac­ters at the cen­tre of their own spaces in posi­tions of joy and pow­er. Ishari­ah is a young Black woman whose self-assur­ance and sheer plea­sure is an act of defi­ance in and of itself. Murroni’s cam­era cap­tures Ishari­ah as she glides and sweeps around her city – the unspo­ken trust between the two func­tion­ing as its own qui­et form of protest.

As this year has shown, activism can take many dif­fer­ent forms. Leg­endary New York film­mak­er Beth B’s lat­est ven­ture, The War is Nev­er Over, is osten­si­bly a film about the extra­or­di­nary life of artist Lydia Lunch. It is also an impas­sioned account of female agency and oppres­sion, met­ed out in Beth’s dis­tinc­tive punk aes­thet­ic and sim­mer­ing with rage. Chart­ing Lunch’s ascent from pre­co­cious teenage provo­ca­teur to pre­co­cious six­tysome­thing provo­ca­teur, B’s film is a vital exam­i­na­tion of the ways in which women’s bod­ies and self-expres­sion have been his­tor­i­cal­ly subjugated.

If Storm­skater is a shout of protest, then The War is Nev­er Over is a sus­tained cry of frus­tra­tion and anar­chy. Both films attest to the impor­tance of show­ing up and speak­ing out as women, not mere­ly for the soci­ety we cur­rent­ly inhab­it but for the one that will pro­ceed us.

Though not direct­ed by a woman, Lee Cooper’s Maisie, a day-in-the-life por­trait of Britain’s old­est drag artiste, is nonethe­less an ardent piece of protest – equal parts com­pas­sion­ate account of old age and incen­di­ary com­men­tary on the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion and era­sure of LGBT+ his­to­ry. The film’s pro­tag­o­nist is 86-year-old David Raven from Brighton, who pot­ters can­tan­ker­ous­ly around his back gar­den and keeps his CD col­lec­tion in an old shop­ping bag. He is also Maisie Trol­lette, aka the Queen of Brighton’ – vet­er­an per­former, acer­bic real­ist and one of the last ves­tiges of the British Pan­tomime Queen tradition.

The film explores the dif­fi­cul­ty David has in rec­on­cil­ing the two sides of his per­sona, which a life­time of prej­u­dice, big­otry and shame have found to be at the very least incon­gru­ous, if not per­verse. Falling some­where between Priscil­la Queen of the Desert and François Ozon’s The New Girl­friend in its can­did explo­ration of the real­i­ties of drag per­for­mance and the nuance of the LGBT+ expe­ri­ence, Cooper’s film is one of this year’s most pow­er­ful and pre­scient stories.

All three of these films pose impor­tant ques­tions about race, iden­ti­ty, sex­u­al­i­ty and self-expres­sion. They also reveal the inher­ent bias­es still at large in the film indus­try. Both Mur­roni and B have spo­ken about their strug­gles with secur­ing fund­ing. The lat­ter has almost 40 years of expe­ri­ence under her belt, yet still comes up against finan­cial bar­ri­ers. The same is true for Mur­roni, who posits that per­haps the doc­u­men­tary form is more acces­si­ble to women film­mak­ers because of its DIY nature and col­lab­o­ra­tive appeal. Per­haps unsur­pris­ing­ly, Coop­er had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence when pitch­ing the con­cept for Maisie.

It is inescapably evi­dent that, even in 2021, those who hold the purse strings don’t appear to val­ue sto­ries about the unglam­orous, the over­looked, the hap­less­ly human. Sheffield Doc/​Fest is a shin­ing excep­tion to that rule. The fes­ti­val has a long tra­di­tion of rep­re­sent­ing a wide slice of soci­ety through the medi­um of film, and this year’s line-up is tes­ta­ment to that. The films men­tioned here force us to look clos­er, to react with empa­thy, and to con­sid­er the mul­ti­tudes that exist in us all.

For more info on this year’s Sheffield Doc/​Fest vis­it sheff​docfest​.com

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