Nina Menkes

Since the 1980s Nina Menkes has been a cinematic feminist pioneer and one of America’s foremost and radical independent filmmakers, known for such remarkable works as Queen of Diamonds (1991) among others. As the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke in 2017, Menkes wrote an article titled “The Visual Language of Oppression: Harvey Wasn’t Working in a Vacuum” that went viral for Filmmaker Magazine. This was her first effort in showing how the exposure of sexual abuse and assault revelations throughout Hollywood revealed a behavior supported and encouraged by a complicit visual culture that underpins both the actions of the perpetrators and the shame and silence of the victims.

Menkes has since developed this line of thinking into the presentation Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression. Using film clips from the golden age of Hollywood to the present (including films by Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Alfred Hitchcock, and many others), she shows how ideas about women have become unconsciously embedded in our heads by the visual language of cinema—through lighting, framing, camera angles, and movement—and how these contribute to sexual intimidation and discrimination. (program approx. 80 mins., livestream)

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