FLUX: an ecofeminist documentary in development
Flux will be a crowdsourced feature documentary exploring new and evolving research, life experiences and cultural norms around gender, aging, and power, with a particular interest in how these may influence the intertwined futures of humanity and the earth.
Filmmaker Liz Canning’s daughter Stormy will go through puberty at the same time Liz will experience menopause: one entering, and one leaving reproductivity behind. These are both widely considered tumultuous and potentially degrading life transitions.
Statistically, Stormy is far more likely to lose confidence and experience reduced academic and athletic performance post-puberty than her twin brother Rocko. The incidence of depression doubles in women going through menopause.
Flux asks: how much of this biological, how much is cultural, and why aren’t these transformations broadly viewed as progress in the evolution of a woman’s identity, wisdom and power?
Flux will interweave Liz and Stormy’s story with those of other women, examining these through lenses of science, philosophy, history, mythology, and memory, to deconstruct and rebuild cultural understandings of female identity, puberty, menopause, and gender itself.
Evolutionary scientists have long wondered WHY women stop reproducing mid-life. Every other living female thing reproduces until death - except narwhals, beluga whales, short-finned pilot whales, and orcas. Post-menopausal orcas become the leaders of their pods, passing on their well-honed survival skills.
In fact most theories explaining human menopause suggest that non-reproductive grandmothers have been KEY to the evolutionary success of the human species.
As a culture we are rethinking common notions of gender and redefining women’s role in the public sphere. As a country we’ve finally elected our first (likely post-menopausal) female vice president.
How are these things related? Why is the US still the only developed country that’s never elected a woman as its leader?
There are increasing connections being drawn between gender and climate change. Project Drawdown claims empowering girls and women can save the planet:
the #6 solution to climate change is Educating Girls
the #7 solution is Reproductive Rights
combined, these 2 things would be the #1 solution.
Educating girls and providing access to family planning would also put many more women in leadership positions, and studies show countries with more female leaders adapt more stringent climate policy. Understanding the connection between the environment and gender is urgently important, not only because women are disproportionately impacted of climate change, but because elevating women may be the most effective solution.
All of this together points to huge and important questions for Flux to explore:
How might gender equity change the world?
Does living in a state of flux in some way widen and enhance the female mind and perspective?
Through the production and distribution of MOTHERLOAD, Liz learned how crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and grassroots “crowd-distribution” can exponentially increase audience engagement and social impact.
The MOTHERLOAD project has driven measurable positive change since its inception in 2011, and the number of community-based, interactive screening events still grows daily.
Flux will fit beautifully into this model, gaining followers, depth and momentum as it evolves through crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and crowd-distribution, building a movement for gender equity along the way.
Some of the ideas behind Flux have been inspired by Liz’s work creating episode 1 of Global Mosaic: Could Empowering Girls Transform the World?, broadcast on PBS and LinkTV:
Could Empowering Girls Save the World?
Director/Producer/Editor/Writer/Camera/Animator: Liz Canning
Around the world, local organizations are finding creative ways to empower young women. There’s a growing consensus that educating and supporting young women creates a positive ripple effect that slows global warming and lifts up entire countries. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, "Hero Women Rising" combines social media and grassroots activism to overcome poverty, war and patriarchal traditions. In Dallas, Texas, where the high school pregnancy rate is 50 percent above the U.S. average, a filmmaking program run by NTARUPT empowers girls to educate each other on reproductive choices.