A bio-doc about my pal Judy Rebick: iconic second wave Canadian feminist, radical activist, journalist and writer. She is the founding publisher of rabble.ca, Canada’s irreverent progressive online news source, and a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada’s largest women’s group.
Shot in kinetic bursts of super 8, the only voice is Judy’s, impelling a trek through a devastated family, the struggle for women’s right to choose and the challenge of neo-liberalism. A series of six public moments (marked by speeches and TV spots) frame the six-part episodic fracture.
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“Feminist, activist and journalist Judy Rebick has been a major representative of progressive Canada since the 1970s. She campaigned vigorously for the right to abortion and in the early 1990s headed the biggest women's organisation in Canada. In her memoires, she reveals how periods of struggle were interspersed with bouts of serious depression, the cause of which can be traced back to childhood traumas. In this essayistic portrait of her made by experimental filmmaker, friend and kindred spirit Mike Hoolboom, an eclectic visual collage accompanies Rebick's voice as she reflects on political and personal themes from her life. The chapters open with moments from her public appearances, with impressionistic Super-8 footage evoking facets of her experiences. The resulting fragmentary chronicle of half a century of political struggle against conservatism and neoliberalism is also the story of a strong woman who, in revealing her personal history, performs her most revolutionary deed to date.” - International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2020
