Special Program: Women Make Movies - Sweet Bananas and The Women’s Happy Time Commune

In these feminist works by Ariel Dougherty and Sheila Paige, non-actors collaborate in unscripted, loosely structured story lines “to play” imagined selves. Sweet Bananas explores the dynamics between different young women as they descend on a slightly older woman in the country. The Women’s Happy Time Commune is a feminist Western, set in a fictional 1850 following a motley crew. Utilizing a women-led crew and women-centric cast, the films capture the flare of early feminism in funny and surprising ways. The films were shot in 1970 and 1971 under the collective Women Make Movies, founded in 1969. Andy Warhol had a strong influence on the style of both Dougherty’s and Paige’s films in this program.