MY NAME IS ANDREA

PRATIBHA PARMAR | USA | 2022 | 104 MIN | ENGLISH

At a time when women’s rights are under threat and porn proliferates, little remains as prescient or as powerful as Andrea Dworkin’s life and words, dramatized here by a variety of award-winning personages to put the near-universal experience of women’s violation on trial. And to shake up your worldview.

Andrea Dworkin spoke out against the established order: against racism and the unfair distribution of wealth, against rape culture and the commodified persecution of the porn industry. Her words and their mesmeric phrasing – often vibrating with nervy, righteous energy – had the “power of poems,” spurred on by her admiration of Ginsberg. They could also place her in the crosshairs so that, like Salman Rushdie, she had to contend with threats to her life when she took the stage. But, even after traumas led repeatedly to muteness, her defiance rose again and again. Through masterful cinematic performances by the likes of Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give), actress and activist Ashley Judd, and French singer-songwriter Soko, Pratibha Parmar’s documentary pulls no punches and draws chilling links between struggles past (ex. the École Polytechnique massacre) and present. Wrenching something lasting from pain.

screening at Cinéma J.A. de Sève | NOVEMBER 27TH 2.30PM

ONLINE (November 28th to November 30th)