Genre
Synopsis
ACTING LIKE WOMEN is a journey into the radical history of feminist art and activism told by those who lived it. Director Cheri Gaulke serves as a guide, shepherding voices from the 1970s “feminist mecca”* in Los Angeles, the Woman’s Building, to the still-relevant movement and emerging artists of today. In this film about the power of personal and social transformation through art, Gaulke shares her journey as a minister’s daughter who flees her stifling Midwestern life in 1975 to become a pioneer of feminist performance art in Southern California. Turned away from the male-dominated art world, these women forge a new kind of activist art that paves the way for today’s art and social justice movements. In this moment when women face an erosion of their rights, this timely film asks “How does a feminist art movement of the past inform artists and activists today?”
*LA Times
Bio
Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles affiliated with the Woman’s Building working in film and visual art. Her award-winning films have screened in film festivals internationally. Gaulke’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and in settings all over the world including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples. In her almost 50-year career, Gaulke has created 30 media works including documentaries, experimental personal narratives, and video installations. Gaulke has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles, California Community Foundation, and California Humanities. Recent films include GLORIA’S CALL about women artists of surrealism (Best Documentary at Ann Arbor Film Festival), MISS ALMA THOMAS: A LIFE IN COLOR about an under-recognized African-American artist (traveling with a museum retrospective exhibition), INSIDE THE BEAUTY BUBBLE about the owner of a roadside attraction in Joshua Tree California (numerous audience and other festival awards), and the recently completed OLD GIRL IN A TUTU: SUSAN RENNIE DISRUPTS ART HISTORY about a queer, octogenarian artist. She is in post-production on her first feature documentary, ACTING LIKE WOMEN, about feminist performance art in 1970s-80s Los Angeles https://actinglikewomen.com/.
Awards History
Metabolic Studio (Annenberg Foundation) 2024 - Grant
California Humanities 2023 - Documentary Project Grant and Research and Development Grant
The Chimaera Project Finishing Fund 2022 - Grant
Credits
Cast - Lily Tomlin
Cinematographer - Kristy Tully
Composer - Miriam Cutler
Writer/Director/Producer - Cheri Gaulke
Editors - Susan Metzger and Nick Lieberman
