Tag Archives: f-rated

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F-rated Films

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The ‘F-rating’ system, invented by Holly Tarquini, Bath Film Festival director in 2014, gives “F” (or feminist) rates to films that are directed, written or feature women as main characters with their own narrative. It’s been also adopted by IMDb.

To be awarded with one, two or three F’s a film must be: (1) directed by a woman, (2) written by a woman and/or (3) have significant women on screen in their own right. So, when a film is directed, written and has a woman’s narrative as a central premise, it gets 3F. Getting 2F rates means that a film is either directed and written by a woman, or written by a woman about a woman’s story, or a woman is directing a woman’s story. A film gets 1F, if it’s directed or written or revolves around a woman’s narrative. For other films, zero F—s.

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Credits: Cate Shortland

Somersault’s touch

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In gymnastics, a somersault is a 360° flip in the air or – when done on the ground – a roll. The starting position resembles the final; however, because of the distance made from the point A to the point B finish is never start. Or to paraphrase Heraclius: “No woman ever steps on the same ground twice, for it’s not the same ground and she’s not the same woman.” In Somersault (2004), a film written and directed by an Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland, the teenage protagonist Heidi does a geographic somersault – she runs away from home after fallout with her mother but eventually returns. Yet it’s not her escape that I’m interested in, but the unconventional use of the one woman’s touch as an essential tool to perceive and bond with the world.

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Credits: Denis Carot & Marie Masmonteil

Party Girl: Untamed femininity at 60

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Taming of the woman is a common motive in classical and popular art with one of the most representable pieces being Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. For me, a word ‘to tame’ always resonates with words such as ‘to hunt down’, ‘subdue’, ‘break someone’s will’ or at least ‘mould’ (into a prescribed module of femininity). It is obvious that when a person is being subjected to taming, she/he/they must be some sort of a social deviant or Other/ed and therefore corrected (sometimes coerced) into a ‘right’ social role, behaviour or lifestyle.

Party Girl (2014, d.: M. Amachoukeli, C. Burger and S. Theis) is a French woman-centric film, focused on Angélique Litzenburger, a sixty-year-old unmarried cabaret dancer, who has decided to get married; however, she does not follow through with her marital plan. The film plot may sound simple, but the story narrative deals with the ‘marriage mandate’ (i.e. a societal urge for a woman to be married at some point) and reveals an implicit societal sexism, ageism and classism.

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