Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)

The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009)

The Body Beautiful (Ngozi Onwurah, 1990)

As our Short Film Triple Bill reflects, feminist films (like women themselves) come in all shapes and sizes. The selection begins with Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, an experimental classic made in 1943 which helped to establish avant-garde cinema in the U.S. This will be followed by Kara Blake’s The Delian Mode, a poetic ode to the electronic composer, Delia Derbyshire. While best-known for creating the theme music for Doctor Who, the short reveals how Derbyshire’s creative and technical skills allowed her to break into the male-dominated audio world of the 1960s. Last but not least is Ngozi Onwurah’s The Body Beautiful. This autobiographical short focuses on the changing bodies and bonds between a British mother dealing with breast cancer, and her daughter, a half-Nigerian model. Featuring Onwurah’s own mother, The Body Beautiful traces the female body in its various vulnerable, eroticised, and commodified forms.