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Showing posts from August, 2014

MIFF Film Review: Ukraine is Not a Brothel

Kitty Green’s film Ukraine is Not a Brothel is a very honest and delightfully composed documentary of Ukraine’s topless feminism awareness group, Femen. The film that was originally sparked by an article in a Melbourne newspaper was born of over 700 hours of footage; recorded whilst Green lived with these girls in Ukraine.   The movie follows the stories of the young women who protest in order to change Ukraine’s reputation of being full of female sex-workers and the perception that all Ukrainian women are controlled by men; they wish for females to be equal to men and have the same work opportunities. It begins with quite an optimistic view of the girls, who each share tales of their involvement with the organisation, and how it affects them and their families, through interviews and footage of their bare-breasted protests. Each of the them are stunning, slim, model-like girls (apart from one, whose grossly overweight body is used for her ‘shock factor’ and publicity f