Man

Women of all ages are celebrated in this masterfully–aligned gallery of portraits. Opening with a quotation from feminist intellectual Simone de Beauvoir: ‘one is not born a woman, one becomes one’, this arresting compendium of portraits presents a boldly female gaze – in both the gaze of director Emer Reynolds and in the frank to-camera gaze of the women who are her subjects. More than 60 headshots of women are presented from infancy to old age, alone and in clusters, friends, sisters, mothers and daughters, within a perfectly paced three minutes.

This film was one of the Irish Film Board’s (now Screen Ireland’s) Short Shorts Films Series, designed to promote ingenuity in creating mini-narratives. Emer Reynolds, now an internationally renowned feature director (The Farthest, Song for While I’m Away), then an esteemed film editor, packs her three minutes with heft and beauty.

This film is part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women. To view more from the collection click here.