Quote:
"The call went out to women filmmakers across Canada, inviting proposals for 'snapshots of the world from a feminist perspective.' Successful applicants would each get five rolls of film, ten thousand dollars—and full creative freedom within the five-minute confines of the project. Lack of experience would not be an obstacle. Hundreds of applications poured in, and over one intense weekend the jury convened at the Banff Centre to make a final selection of sixteen projects. The result was Five Feminist Minutes, a groundbreaking and wide-ranging program of shorts that included agitprop animation from a Toronto sex-trade advocate, a comic evocation of a Chinese-Canadian girlhood, a body-positive music video called We're Talking Vulva and thirteen other titles. Released in 1990 as a feature-length program, Five Feminist Minutes circulated widely, bringing a host of new cinematic storytellers to the fore, many from communities where filmmaking opportunities were scarce or non-existent, and helping to launch or advance the careers of indie director Ann Marie Fleming, filmmaker/broadcaster Sook Yin Lee, performance artist Shawna Dempsey and others."
-- Philip Lewis

Source:
Lewis, Philip. "Five Feminist Minutes: Hot Docs honours trailblazing work of Studio D." NFB Blog, April 18, 2019.