WE AIM TO PLEASE (1976)
13 min experimental short from As If Productions
by Robin Laurie and Margot Nash
A film about female sexuality that not only touches the areas of paranoia, fear and doubt, which we as women experience in relation to our bodies and physical self image, but which is also joyful, erotic and funny.
The film is in three sections:
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Setting up the elements: us, the women filmmakers, sexxx the city.
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How it feels: female vulnerability in a violent society that expects women to be the flatterers.
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Breaking the silence: direct action and an attempt at a cinematic definition of female sexuality that is not idealised.
FURTHER INFORMATION
2017 Sydney Film Festival - Feminism and Film - Personal and Political
2016 FFFlicks Women's Art Register. Long Play Bar and Cinema Melbourne
2015 Women's Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive. Sydney College of the Arts Gallery
2014 The Form That Accommodates The Mess. IMA (Institute of Modern Art) Brisbane
2009 Screen Worlds ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) Melbourne – permanent exhibition
2008 Australian Perspectives: New and Archival queer shorts ACMI
2005 Resistance: a screen history of Australian counter cultural movements ACMI
1999 The Wild and Wonderful 70’s Chauvel SYDNEY
1996 Valladolid SPAIN; Filmoteca MADRID
1994 BARCELONA; Women and Film: The Hidden (A) Gender ADELAIDE;
1990 INSIGHT Women’s Film Festival-Canada
1989 OTHER PLEASURES Modern Image Makers Melbourne
1987 SPOLETO FRINGE Melb
1982 Gay Film Festival LONDON
1981 1st International Feminist Film and Video Conference AMSTERDAM
1979 Bergama Festival of Third Theatre ITALY; Women’s Arts Festival, Christchurch NEW ZEALAND
1978 L’Homme Regarde L’Homme Paris; La Rochelle Avant Garde Film Festival PARIS; World Congress of Sociology FINLAND
1977 WOMEN WAVES Sydney Filmmakers Cooperative national tour of short films
AWARDS
1978 Jury Prize: L’Homme Regarde L’Homme Film Festival Paris.
FESTIVALS and SCREENINGS
“WE AIM TO PLEASE is angry, mordantly witty, funny, abrasive, hits you with lyrical paradoxes… it rings bells in the subconscious as well as
the front of the mind.” - Virginia Fraser, Filmnews
CRITICS REVIEWS
READ
Mary Tomsic's 'We Aim To Please: cinematic activism, sex and violence' Dec 6th 2016 http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/we-aim-to-please/
Australian Women's History Network
LISTEN TO: Robin Laurie introduce 'We Aim To Please' at a 'The Form That Accommodates The Mess' a series of film screenings at IMA (Institute of Modern Art) Brisbane November 2014
Graphic: Carol Porter
As If Poster c 1972 - Limited edition
Available for purchase (POA)
Request a copy
WATCH CLIPS FROM THE FILM: Australian Screen Online