The Famine Within (1990)

Director: Katherine Gilday Genres: Documentary, Indie-Arthouse Cinema, Lifestyle Origin: Canada Certificate: G Languages: English Running Time: 90 min

synopsis

Women's bodies and the cultural ideal. THE FAMINE WITHIN is a Canadian feature-length documentary film about the contemporary obsession with body size and shape. Under the coercive powers of consumerism and the mass media, women have come to view their bodies as marketable objects and to judge them according to the unrealistic standards of the ideal body. Paradoxically, this anxious quest for the perfect body is going on precisely at the point where women face serious challenges of self-definition as they orient themselves within the world of work outside the home. Using a strong dramatic and visual approach, the film explores the complex knot of causes that lies at the heart of this paradox. It considers the confusing and contradictory directives that young women are growing up with today, and the way in which such role confusion is reflected in the symbolic associations of body size. Combining the direct testimony of many women who have suffered from body obsession - dancers, mothers, career women, athletes, bulimics, fat women, anorexics, young girls - with views of professionals working in the area, THE FAMINE WITHIN explores the kind of hunger that cannot be satisfied by food. WINNER! BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY, 1991 Genie Awards, Canada.