Grrrls on Film is a weekend-long celebration of the feminist acts of making sound and vision. The festival and forum at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Calif. gathers together pioneers in movies, music, art and activism to address what has become one of the hot-button social justice issues of our time: lack of diverse representation and expression in arts and entertainment. The event borrows its name from the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s, which fused the Do-It-Yourself credo of punk with Third Wave Feminism’s call for self-determination.
Through screenings, panel discussions, music and workshops, Grrrls on Film offers a multi-decade tour of what the Riot Grrrls called Girl Power. The event features movies made by female directors and movies about noisemakers. All of the represented filmmakers and many musicians and scholars will present and discuss these seminal works; confirmed participants include Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization, Wayne’s World), Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways), Karyn Kusama (Girlfight), Alice Bag (the Bags), Kim and the Created, Nao Bustamante, Phranc, Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile), Colleen Green, Kari Krome, Peach Kelli Pop, Nicole Panter, Raquel Gutiérrez, Jill Reiter (In Search of Margo-go) and Lizzie Borden (Born in Flames).
Grrrls on Film, taking place March 18, 19 and 20, 2016, is a collaboration among faculty of Loyola Marymount University’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, the School of Film and Television and the College of Communication and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University. The campus radio station, KXLU, will present an outdoor concert with organizations that promote and support women in film, music, publishing, the arts, and academia on hand to provide information and present workshops. The goal is not merely to address the gender inequity of the film and music industries, but to inspire students to express themselves.
“When I was a girl coming into womanhood, punk rock saved my life,” says McDonnell, Assistant Professor of Journalism and New Media and author of four books, including Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways. “Sharon and I bonded over our love of screaming females, and we hope the transformational tales presented in these films inspire a new generation to create works that speak for and to their lives.”
“The ethos of DIY and punk shaped my own ethics, concepts of social justice, and ultimately my career path. I want to reinforce that film can be a powerful mode of expression beyond the traditional Hollywood model to our students and community,” says Mooney, filmmaker and Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Film & Television.
GRRRLs on Film is free and open to the public.
Full line-up below:
FRIDAY, MARCH 18
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
PANEL: Girl Power: Behind the Lens with Floria Sigismondi, Karyn Kusama, Janice Roshalle Littlejohn, and LMU SFTV Associate Professor Vanessa Newell
8:00 PM
SCREENINGS: The Runaways and Dirty Girls
Q&A with directors Michael Lucid and Floria Sigismondi will follow.
SATURDAY, MARCH 19
12:00 PM
SCREENINGS: Born in Flames and Golden Chain
Q&A with directors Lizzie Borden, Adebukola Bodunrin, and Ezra Clayton Daniels will follow.
2:30 PM
SCREENINGS AND PERFORMANCE: In Search of Margo-go, Daybreak, and Quinn
Q&A with directors Jill Reiter, Lucretia Tye Jasmine, and performers including Nao Bustamante, Lex Vaughn, Tara Jepsen, and LMU SFTV Associate Professor Sue Scheibler will follow.
6:00 PM
SCREENINGS: The Decline of Western Civilization and I Don’t Know
Q&A with director Penelope Spheeris and Anna Fox will follow.
8:30 PM
PANEL: LAy of the LAnd: We Will Bury You with Alice Bag, Phranc, Nicole Panter, Raquel Gutiérrez, and Rubén Martínez
SUNDAY, MARCH 20
12:00 PM
SCREENINGS: Lost Grrrls: Riot Grrrl in Los Angeles and Grrrl Love and Revolution: Riot Grrrl NYC
Q&A with directors Vega Darling and Abby Moser to follow.
2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Grrrls on Stage
Host: Allison Wolfe. Featuring: Kim and the Created, Colleen Green, Peach Kelli Pop, DJs Cass and McAllister, DJ Mukta Mohan, DJ Taylor Rowley; spoken word by Kari Krome, Alicia Partnoy, and Sarah Maclay
For more information and RSVP, visit lmu.edu/grrrlsonfilm.
Join the conversation: #grrrlsonfiLMU
About Loyola Marymount University’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts:
Loyola Marymount University’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) in Los Angeles prepares students for successful lives of meaning and purpose with a transformative liberal arts education. LMU’s largest and oldest college, BCLA offers 22 major and 26 minor undergraduate degrees in humanities and social science disciplines, along with many interdisciplinary programs and five graduate programs. A BCLA education instills the values of our Jesuit and Marymount founders: ethical citizenship, critical inquiry, and a love of learning. For more information about BCLA’s events and programs, please visit bellarmine.lmu.edu.
About LMU SFTV:
Movie industry moguls helped establish Loyola Marymount University’s (LMU) current campus on the bluffs above west Los Angeles in the 1920s. By 1964, LMU was formally teaching film and television curriculum, and in 2001, the School of Film and Television (SFTV) was established as its own entity. Today, SFTV offers students a comprehensive education where mastering technical skills and story is equally important to educating the whole person, including the formation of character and values, meaning and purpose. SFTV offers undergraduate degrees in animation, production, screenwriting, film and television studies and recording arts; and graduate degrees in production, screenwriting and writing and producing for television. The school is one of the few film programs providing students with a completely tapeless model of production and post-production, and SFTV’s animation program is one of the few worldwide that teaches virtual cinematography. Selected alumni include John Bailey, Bob Beemer, Francie Calfo, Brian Helgeland, Francis Lawrence, Lauren Montgomery, Jack Orman, Van Partible and James Wong, among others. Get more information at sftv.lmu.edu or facebook.com/lmusftv.
