Yours in Sisterhood
Irene Lusztig
Middletown, Connecticut: A young girl reads a poem out loud. A bit hesitantly, awkwardly – the text is not hers, but part of a letter sent in 1974 by a girl of the same age from Middletown to the Ms. magazine. When asked what she thought of the letter, she straightens herself and says: »Reading something like that makes you sit up and take notice, because you realise that it’s actually still like that now.«
As one of 306 women filmed by Irene Lusztig reading and commenting on readers’ letters to the editor from the archive of the first liberal feminist magazine Ms., the thirteen-year-old in her Marvel shirt sums up the quintessence of the documentary set-up: a look into the archive leads back to the present. The different responses of the women who read the letters confirms that this dialogue between the past and present is a highly complex one. Sometimes favourably, sometimes a bit more argumentatively, they comment on the letters, which recount everyday discrimination at work and at home, tell of fake orgasms, abortions and the ignorance of society towards the realities of People of Colour and LGBT. But they always express respect to the women who wrote them for having the courage to raise their voices – voices that remained unheard at the time, because, of all the letters they read out, only one was ever actually published in Ms. magazine.
It is thanks to Irene Lusztig that these letters have found their way into the public eye around 40 years later through reenactments – as a means of reflection, identification and above all encouragement to remain a »sister of freedom«. (MS)
Film Series New Archives
Irene Lusztig
Born 1974 in Coventry, UK, film-maker, visual artist and archival researcher Irene Lusztig often uses archive material for her film and video work in order to make forgotten and neglected stories visible and to reflect on personal and collective memory. Many of her current works address the stories of women and women’s bodies, including her début film Reconstruction, the essay film The Motherhood Archives and the internet project Worry Box Project. Her work has been shown at the Berlinale, in the MoMa and at the IDFA Amsterdam.
Films by Irene Lusztig
Yours in Sisterhood 2018 | The Motherhood Archives 2013 | The Samantha Smith Project 2005 | Reconstruction 2001 | For Beijing with Love and Squalor 1997