Life is perfect, with every resident’s needs met by the company. While the husbands spend every day inside the Victory Project Headquarters, working on the “development of progressive materials,” their wives-including Frank’s elegant partner, Shelley (Gemma Chan)-get to spend their time enjoying the beauty, luxury and debauchery of their community. The 1950’s societal optimism espoused by their CEO, Frank (Chris Pine)-equal parts corporate visionary and motivational life coach-anchors every aspect of daily life in the tight-knit desert utopia. Īlice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) are lucky to be living in the idealized community of Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. The film features interviews with an all-star cast of women and non-binary industry professionals including Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, Charlyne Yi, Joey Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, Eliza Hittman, Maria Giese, and Rosanna Arquette. Building on the essential work of Laura Mulvey and other feminist writers, Menkes shows how these not-so-subtle embedded messages affect and intersect with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse and assault, as well as employment discrimination against women, especially in the film industry. Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power illuminates the patriarchal narrative codes that hide within supposedly “classic” set-ups and camera angles, and demonstrates how women are frequently displayed as objects for the use, support, and pleasure of male subjects. Using clips from hundreds of movies we all know and love – from Metropolis to Vertigo to Phantom Thread – Menkes convincingly makes the argument that shot design is gendered. If the camera is predatory, then the culture is predatory.” In this eye-opening documentary, celebrated independent filmmaker Nina Menkes explores the sexual politics of cinematic shot design. This collective reclamation breaks down the myth of isolation among transgender history-makers, breathing new life into a lineage of collaborators and conspirators who have been forgotten for far too long. Through a collaborative practice of reimagination, an all-star cast of trans performers, artists, and thinkers – including Angelica Ross, Jen Richards, and Zackary Drucker – take on vividly rendered, impeccably vintage reenactments, bringing to life groundbreaking artifacts of trans history. In this innovative cinematic exercise that blends fiction and nonfiction, director Chase Joynt uses Agnes’s story, along with others unearthed in long-shelved case files, to widen the frame through which trans history is viewed. Her clever use of the study to gain access to gender-affirming healthcare led to her status as a fascinating and celebrated figure in trans history. The pseudonymous Agnes was a pioneering transgender woman who participated in an infamous gender health study conducted at UCLA in the 1960s.
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