Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy

This program of 10 rollicking shorts takes inspiration from the freedom of the first years of cinema to bring a boundary-smashing brawl and a creative revolution for women to the screen. It kicks off with Karen Pearlman’s BREAKING PLATES (2024), a contemporary docudrama produced by Physical TV and inspired by the creative mayhem and wild physicality of “Cinema’s First Nasty Women,” a collection of deliciously mischievous silent shorts which feature some of the earliest rebel women to take to the silver screen. The interplay of gestures of protest across the program is sharply comedic and delightfully entertaining, celebrating women who refuse to be boxed in and instead choose to disorient gender norms in a way that is both rebellious and joyful. “Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy” is a unique illustration of how the past can energize the present and the present can conjure the past. It is a riotously entertaining enactment of the principle that if we want to tell different stories, we have to tell stories differently. Featuring an introduction and discussion by Dr. Maggie Hennefeld and Dr. Laura Horak! BREAKING PLATES | (Karen Pearlman, 2024), Australia, 25 min. VICTOIRE IS ON HER LAST NERVE [VICTOIRE À SES NERFS] | France, 1907, 3 min. ROSALIE AND HER PHONOGRAPH [ROSALIE ET SON PHONOGRAPHE] | France, 1911, 4 min. MARY JANE’S MISHAP | UK, 1903,4 min. ZOÉ AND THE MIRACULOUS UMBRELLA [ZOÉ ET LA PARAPLUIE MIRACULEUX] | France, 1913, 4 min. LÉONTINE PULLS THE STRINGS [LES FICELLES DE LÉONTINE] | France, 1910, 7 min. HYPNOTIZING THE HYPNOTIST |U.S., 1911, 7 min. CUNÉGONDE THE COACHWOMAN [CUNÉGONDE FEMME COCHÈRE] |France, 1913, 6 min. THE BOY DETECTIVE, OR THE ABDUCTORS FOILED | U.S., 1908, 5 min. THE MAID’S STRIKE [LA GRÈVE DES BONNES] | France, 1906, 7 min. Curated by Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, and produced for video by Bret Wood, Cinema’s First Nasty Women is a partnership of Kino Lorber, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Women Film Pioneers Project, Eye Filmmuseum, FIC-Silente, and Carleton University."Silent, Mixed MediaPT1H12MNot Rated2026-04-07
Karen Pearlman
Various
Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy"Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy"

Showtimes

April 7, 7:00 pm

Plaza Theatre