10th(2008)
I Was a Teenage Feminist
Therese SHECHTER
- Canada, USA
- 2005
- 62min
- Beta
- color
- Documentary
SYNOPSIS
In the harsh reality of the bias against feminism in Korea in 2008, it is more acceptable to say “I’m not a feminist” than to say “I’m a feminist”. What does it mean to live as an active feminist, here and now? This film deals with this question optimistically. The director looks back at her identity as a feminist and questions it. Through her intense search for the movement and history of feminism, she reaches her own personal definition of feminism. Her approach to feminism in this film cloes not represent the vast range of feminism which has the profound history and various standpoints which cannot be homogenized. Living in a society which systematically discriminates against women, however, this film offers the viewer an opportunity to ask ‘what is feminism?’ and ‘what is it like to live as a woman with her identity?’ (Jay SOHN)
PROGRAM NOTE
In the harsh reality of the bias against feminism in Korea in 2008, it is more acceptable to say “I’m not a feminist” than to say “I’m a feminist”. What does it mean to live as an active feminist, here and now? This film deals with this question optimistically. The director looks back at her identity as a feminist and questions it. Through her intense search for the movement and history of feminism, she reaches her own personal definition of feminism. Her approach to feminism in this film cloes not represent the vast range of feminism which has the profound history and various standpoints which cannot be homogenized. Living in a society which systematically discriminates against women, however, this film offers the viewer an opportunity to ask ‘what is feminism?’ and ‘what is it like to live as a woman with her identity?’ (Jay SOHN)
Director
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Therese SHECHTERTherese SHECHTER
Therese Shechter is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, whose first documentary feature, I Was a Teenage Feminist, had its New York premiere in September 2005. After attending Columbia College Film School in Chicago in the mid-1990’s, Shechter worked for production company Tribeca Films as Producer’s Assistant. Shechter recently completed a documentary short entitled How I Learned to Speak Turkish, which won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the 2005 Atlanta Film Festival. She is currently in production on a new documentary The American Virgin, which is about sex education in America.
Credit
- ProducerTherese SHECHTER, Stephanie St. PIERRE
- Editor CAROLE LARSEN, KRISTIN BARLOW
