One of Canada's most creative independent filmmakers, Kay Armatage experiments in exciting ways with narrative structure and documentary format, while expanding the scope of the feminist film (as, in her writing, she has extended the limits of feminist film theory) in subjects ranging from Gertrude Stein to striptease. Armatage's films have recently shown at the Chicago, Toronto and Edinburgh Film Festivals.
Gertrude and Alice
Inspired by Gertrude Stein's own experiments with time in literature, this short narrative views the five-year relationship of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas in a series of four shots. Made just after the cinéma-vérité documentary on Jill Johnston, Gertrude and Alice takes the opposite approach, one in which the camera's intervention is both evident and up-beat.
• Directed and Written by Kay Armatage. Photographed by Dennis Miller. With Jackie Burroughs, Anne Anglin. (1978, 8 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)

Speak Body
In a series of 13 images, Armatage here renders with great success a subjective approach to the woman's experience of abortion.
• Directed by Kay Armatage. Photographed by Bob New. (1979, 7-1/2 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)

Bed and Sofa
Loosely based on Abram Room's 1927 Soviet silent, Bed and Sofa, the story of a ménage à trois, Armatage's comic rendition ends from the woman's, rather than the men's, point of view. Made just after Gertrude and Alice, Bed and Sofa is similar in its use of a simple situation, worked out in many variations; or, a long story, told in a short time (utilizing 50 one-shot scenes).
• Directed and Written by Kay Armatage. Photographed by Teddy McClelland. With Janet Burke, Geza Kovacs, Allen Bridle. (1979, 12 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)

Striptease (Note: Print did not arrive; rescheduled November 13, at 6:00 PM)
The catalyst for this unusual documentary, which took the Silver Plaque at the 1980 Chicago Film Festival, was the attempt by Toronto striptease artists to form a union. The film is structured around the strippers themselves, as they speak directly to the camera about their attitude toward striptease, as work.
• Directed by Kay Armatage. Photographed by Bob New. (1980, 24 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)

Jill Johnston, October 1975
Called by Armatage an “entertainment documentary,” this excellent cinéma-vérité is now a period piece, covering as it does both a key period in the life of writer Jill Johnston, and the Toronto feminist scene of 1975. Johnston visited Toronto for five days in October 1975, in the midst of writing a book (one which, as a result of the visit, never was completed). Joan Churchill's cinematography captures the writer kicking around Toronto with her women friends, as well as reading her own work.
• Directed by Kay Armatage. Photographed by Joan Churchill. (1975/77, 30 mins, color, Print from filmmaker)