Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power + Q&A 18

This film is F-Rated

Celebrating the empowerment of women in the film industry. Read more >

From the archive

This film was last shown on 14 May 2023

With academic rigor and creative passion, artist-filmmaker Nina Menkes dissects the production line of Hollywood image making and the real world impacts of the male gaze in cinema.

Expanding on her 2020 talk, “Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema", Menkes encourages all audiences to confront and interrogate our cinematic diet and how toxic imagery has real world consequences. Through more than 175 clips, ranging from canonical auteur works like Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Hitchcock’s Vertigo to more contemporary examples such as Denis Villeneueve’s Blade Runner 2049 and Alex Garland's Ex-Machina, Menkes unveils the misogynistic implications behind the images we celebrate. Featuring interviews with ground-breaking directors such as Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen), and seminal film theorist Laura Mulvey, Menkes interrogates every corner of the sexist Hollywood system from the workers, to the stars, to the audience and invites her audience to do the same.

Join us for a post-screening Q&A with director Nina Menkes and Melanie Iredale of Reclaim The Frame. Please note that this screening will start promptly without trailers.

Reclaim The Frame is a charity with a mission to champion marginalised perspectives in cinema, and to advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion in film by fostering a community for those who make, show, release and watch them.

To learn more, become an Advocate and join the #ReclaimTheFrame mission to receive free cinema tickets and discount codes, sign up to their free newsletter.

If you can't make this special screening, Brainwashed: Sex-camera-power is also screening on general release.

Reclaim the Frame