Join us the 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Hideout for our new series, CFA CRASHERS! At CFA we are constantly inspired by the sea of talented individuals who call Chicagoland their home. In our upcoming CFA CRASHERS series, we’re inviting some of our favorite locals into our vault to curate a film program all their own (absolutely no rules or strings attached). The general motivation behind the series is to have a lot of different communities and voices engaging with our materials, as we’re increasingly interested in collaborating with those who are eager to mix it up with the CFA films in ways not thought of before. Beginning this August, a guest programmer (aka “Crasher”) will introduce a screening of their making over happy hour at the Hideout. All films will be presented in 16mm.
Jessica Hopper (pictured above) kicks off the series with two films about women in the workplace. Jessica is a Chicago-based music journalist and the author of The Girls Guide to Rocking. She is the music editor at Rookie, an editor at The Pitchfork Review and an advice columnist for the Village Voice. An anthology of her criticism is due out next spring.
And here’s what Jessica has to say about her program:
“When I first thought of the topic of “women at work”, I imagined combing CFA’s collections to find educational how-to’s of women operating equipment, maybe someone throwing a pot or painting or doing the invisible work of mothering. What we pulled up turned out to be so much more exciting–a rather literal interpretation of “Women’s Work”–with these two films from the same year. The Willmar 8 illuminates the very real and continuing struggle for wage equality for women through the landmark strike of eight women in Willmar, MN who were told they were qualified to train men for senior positions, but not hold those jobs themselves. Women In Business documents the pride and empowerment women feel in being their own boss, running their own business–something that in this 1980 documentary is presented as something sort of new and novel. Both also serve as time capsules, of how much financial independence and the right to work (and do fulfilling work) was prioritized by second wave feminists and a reminder of the ongoing struggles for wage equality. “
WOMEN IN BUSINESS (1980, LSB Productions, 16mm., Color, Sound, 24 min., found in CFA’s Chicago Public Library Collection)
Six different women who have successfully started their own business are profiled in this upbeat motivational film. Owners of a moving company, a security guard firm, a cooking school, a commodities brokerage & other businesses demonstrate how entrepreneurial spirit & hard work have made dreams into satisfying realities.
THE WILLMAR 8 (1980, Lee Grant, 16mm., Color, Sound, 50 min., found in CFA’s Chicago Public Library Collection)
Activist, actor and director Lee Grant shares the story of eight unassuming, apolitical women in America’s heartland–Willmar, Minnesota–who were driven by sex discrimination at work to take the most unexpected step of their lives and found themselves in the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights. Risking jobs, friends, family and the opposition of church and community, they began the longest bank strike in American history in a dramatic attempt to assert their own equality and self-worth.
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