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 (2023), a contemporary docudrama 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 revivify the present and the present can revivify 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. (Note courtesy of Physical TV.)

BREAKING PLATES | Australia, 2023, b&w/color, 25 min.
VICTOIRE IS ON HER LAST NERVE [VICTOIRE À SES NERFS] | France, 1907, b&w, 3 min.
ROSALIE AND HER PHONOGRAPH [ROSALIE ET SON PHONOGRAPHE] | France, 1911, b&w, 4 min.
MARY JANE’S MISHAP | UK, 1903, b&w, 4 min.
ZOÉ AND THE MIRACULOUS UMBRELLA [ZOÉ ET LA PARAPLUIE MIRACULEUX] | France, 1913, b&w, 4 min.
LÉONTINE PULLS THE STRINGS [LES FICELLES DE LÉONTINE] | France, 1910, b&w, 7 min.
HYPNOTIZING THE HYPNOTIST |U.S., 1911, b&w, 7 min.
CUNÉGONDE THE COACHWOMAN [CUNÉGONDE FEMME COCHÈRE] |France, 1913, b&w, 6 min.
THE BOY DETECTIVE, OR THE ABDUCTORS FOILED | U.S., 1908, b&w, 5 min.
THE MAID’S STRIKE [LA GRÈVE DES BONNES] | France, 1906, b&w, 7 min.

Approx. runtime: 72 mins.

Run Time: 72 Minutes

Opening Date: Monday, November 10, 2025

Genre: Silent shorts

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