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