Browse films

Calendar Girls

Lisa Birke
-
Canada, 2014, 4 min.

In no dialogue.
Includes nudity.

Calendar Girls is a humorous exploration of woman as spectacle who is intrinsically at home in nature - or is she? Playing off the selfie and do-it-yourself YouTube dance video, it soon becomes apparent that the performer has been staged within a culturally choreographed and picturesque space. When the performance finally begins, the viewer's expectation is destabilized. The result--ungraceful and chaotic--allows the exposure of the fallacy of the show. In her final act, a stripped-down and joyous freedom of expression restores the Calendar Girl's sense of self and her humanity.

Director's Statement

I examine notions of 'self' through the lens of gender, bringing the cultural tropes of woman into focus and into question. Filmed unaccompanied in the Canadian landscape, absurd yet insightful performative acts become entangled in nuanced and complex narratives in single and multi-channel video works that make reference to art history, mythology and popular culture. Revealing what lies beneath the surface of femininity, my work toys with a conclusion that is problematic, comi-tragic, and most essentially, human.

Category: Experimental.
Themes: World Cinema, Women, Identity.