As a young girl, my identity was always in a state of negotiation. From discovering my queerness to exploring my politics and religious beliefs, nothing felt straightforward in my early adolescence. There was one thing though that always felt simple, even intrinsic to my very nature. I am and have always been a feminist.
Though easy to say aloud now, this wasn’t always the case, and my relationship to the broader feminist movement has been complicated. Navigating my own perspective in the current political climate that underpins contemporary feminism has been challenging, and with the rise of TERFism (trans-exclusionary-radical-feminism), trad wives and the manosphere, talking about gender can be difficult to say the least. However, this is where the profound potential of an archive comes into play. By seeing the history of a movement, one can better understand the strategies once used to overcome past challenges.
So, when tasked with reviewing Marusya Bociurkiw’s 2023 film Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World which screened at the VIFF center on March 25 and 26, I knew the experience was likely to stir up more than some simple technical or thematic observations. Bociurkiw delves into the feminist media archive headfirst, following the rise and fall of analogue communication and artistic practices that preceded the current mainly-digital #MeToo era of feminism.
From independently produced films, magazines, newspapers and radio shows, Analogue Revolution shows the incredible scope of feminist media production as well as how these works were essential in activist efforts of the time. In intimate interviews with the women who pioneered the movement from the 1970s to the ‘90s, the film documents the truly transformative and revolutionary power media creation held and still holds in the fight for gender equality.
Marusya Bociurkiw, a UBC alumna and founder of the video collective Emma Productions, has long been deeply involved in feminist organizing. With a background in filmmaking and scholarly work, she bridges her areas of expertise seamlessly in the film. In our interview, Bociurkiw explained to me the motivation behind the project, citing her students as a significant inspiration — but this inspiration wasn’t positive per se.
As a media studies professor at TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University), Bociurkiw noticed a considerable difference between her experience teaching at a university with a gender studies program in comparison to TMU, which did not. The importance of these programs, not only on humanities students but to the entire ecosystem of the university, became glaringly obvious throughout her time teaching at TMU as students dismissed or outright denied the importance of the feminist movement. The perception of liberal feminism as being racist, trans-exclusionary and non-intersectional were frequent criticisms by students, and while Bociurkiw acknowledges the accuracy of these statements in some contexts, she does not see these critiques as “a reason to not allow feminism into their lives, psyches or educations.”
Bociurkiw’s project began as an academic article about feminist video collectives, but she quickly saw its potential as artistic inspiration. With a background as a full-time artist, Bociurkiw became interested in the creative potential of the archive, drawing attention to the media that has successfully been preserved and the glaring absences.
When watching the film, it was incredible to see just how vibrant and full the archive truly is, even with the knowledge of the many gaps that still exist. By collaborating with Rise Up! Feminist Archive, and hiring graduate students at TMU and York UniversityBociurkiw uncovered a robust collective of archival media, laying the groundwork for the film.
One of the central ways the archive was used was, of course, as material for the film itself. By interweaving original footage shot by cinematographer Vanessa Abadhir with archival footage, Bociurkiw was able to give a certain “historical texture” to the film, she said. The archive played another instrumental role in interviews Bociurkiw conducted with feminist activists and archivists.
Bociurkiw said interviewing subjects for the film was no easy task. The “two things I heard a lot was I don’t think I can remember, and I don’t think I have anything to say,” said Bociurkiw. This was intriguing to hear as the perspective of older feminists is truly the heart of the film, and many of the most touching moments come from tender interactions between women discussing their pasts. But, these moments don’t come out of thin air. Using props (i.e. posters, newspapers, video recordings, etc.), Bociurkiw was able to pull memories, stories and insights out of women who might not have discussed their work in decades.
Another technique that was integral in the interview process was having women interviewed in group settings when possible, rather than individually. By having multiple women discussing a topic at once, comments or jokes said by others in the group easily jogged the memories of other participants and created a beautiful dialogue.
This dialogue was replicated in my own viewing experience of the film. Screened in the intimate 40-seat Lochmaddy Studio Theatre at the VIFF center, the sense of community in the space was palpable. Older women in their 50s, 60s and 70s filled the seats around me as the lights of the space dimmed and the film began. The laughter, sighs and tears of my fellow moviegoers became just as significant to my viewing experience as the sound design of the film itself.
One such moment was when a clip from the radio show Dykes on Mykes played, where the hosts gave queer dating advice to their devoted listeners. I began laughing as the advice felt honest, timely and accurate to my experiences, and I was surrounded by an audience full of older women laughing just as hard. The power of intergenerational catharsis was undeniable as the film unfolded — at the heart of that catharsis was women sharing their intimate, difficult and hilarious stories in interviews.
Although interviews are at the film’s centre, it by no means feels like your standard talking-head documentary. The film being a “slightly boring but virtuous educational documentary” was something Bociurkiw wanted to avoid. Thanks to her technical and aesthetic directorial choices, though, I feel the film couldn’t be further from the descriptor of ‘boring.’
With the aim of creating a cinematic look, cinematographer Abadhir used wide-angle shots, giving a “sense of expansiveness and monumental-ness to the subject” said Bociurkiw. This choice, along with excellent editing by Eugene Weis gave depth to the film’s characters, allowing them to feel like fully fleshed out individuals with complex stories and backgrounds. Weis and Bociurkiw achieved this in the film’s vignettes, which broke up the interviews and archival footage by depicting subjects simply living their day-to-day lives.
By viewing the subjects of the film both in the past and the present moment, Bociurkiw aims to provide younger audiences with a sense of “what aging looks like as a feminist.” I walked away with a new perspective on aging after seeing the film. Social change is often associated with youth but, by depicting older feminists as active, engaged participants in their communities through artistic creation, scholarly work or activism, younger feminists such as myself can see what a future looks like.
However, there is no question that the methodologies of feminist organizing have greatly shifted since the days of analogue media. One key takeaway of the film for me was just how slow and meticulous analogue media was to produce. Women are shown cutting and pasting by hand when creating the layout for feminist newspapers; they’re shown carrying heavy cameras, like the portapak, around city streets, which they would then edit by hand.
Many women, including myself, tend to romanticize this period of feminism. There was an undeniable sense of community that these analogue processes fostered. You couldn’t do the work alone and you couldn’t do the work remotely. In our current digital age this form of activism seems like a lost relic of history, but Bociurkiw doesn’t believe it has to be this way. During the Q&A following the screening, she explained that we must be part of both modes, analogue and digital, and that by simply condemning one or the other we are missing the potential to do a lot of important organizing.
Even before seeing the film, I knew this work was going to be deeply personal to me, not only as a feminist but as a media studies student and activist. However, now having sat with the material for a few days, its impact still lingering, I’ve begun questioning exactly why this film is so impactful — not only for me, but for generations of feminists across Canada.
During my interview with Bociurkiw, she brought up a concept that I had heard many times before but hadn’t quite internalized with the depth it required — the “profound notion of the personal being political.” By telling our stories collectively and in conversation with other feminist thinkers, a deeper level of understanding and nuance can be achieved through our work. Because of this, I have attempted to not shy away from my own perspective and lived experience as a woman, but to embrace my own subjectivity in this review — taking the personal, the artist, the political, and placing it in conversation with the feminist activism of the past and current media creation of the present. Analogue Revolution serves as not only a reminder of what past work has already happened, but how that can influence and propel the next generation of feminists into their own revolution.
