by Juliet Miller, Producer/Director

SEEDS OF RESISTANCE is a film that shows women in two very different Third World environments making their own efforts to improve their circumstances and achieve equal rights.

Women in Bolivia's capital city — La Paz — join together through the Amas de Casa (Housewives Federation) to generate their own incomes and to pressure for economic change. This involves them in political struggle at both local and national level.

Rural women in Zimbabwe are engaged in efforts to ensure that the liberation fought for in the Independence war also extends to them. They want economic development to include them, not just men, and they are determined to see that their new legal status is also recognised in practice. And if the old patriarchal society is to be overturned in the name of modernisation, Zimbabwe's women are not prepared to accept a new one in which all decision-making remains firmly in the hands of men.

For women in Bolivia and Zimbabwe, the crucial issue is the same as for women throughout the Third World: how to ensure that their needs and concerns are taken into consideration in the formulation of economic policies and development strategies.

Seeds of Resistance was filmed by an all-female crew. This proved to be an invaluable asset.

The women readily accepted us partly because our on the ground contacts were trusted, but primarily because we were women. The women gain their internal strength through organising separately from men. If the crew had been male, or even partly male, it would have undermined this confidence.

The women welcomed us into their groups rather than letting us film from the sidelines where the men were always present, watching and listening. The women, however, were as adamant about their integration with men on all levels of society as they were about the importance of their separateness within their own organisations. The strength of these organisations came from the exclusion of men from specific discussions and decisions in order that the women could overcome their shyness and gain confidence from each other.

All the women involved felt that it was very important that their history was documented. We have promised to send them copies of the finished film (one will be dubbed in Spanish), as they had expressed the wish to gain something out of our filming.

The women in Bolivia and Zimbabwe were eager to hear more about women in the western world and hoped we would be making more films about the lives of women.

For hire or purchase of a video copy, please contact:

THE OTHER CINEMA 79 Wardour Street London W1V3TH, England (tel. 01 734 8508)

CINEMA OF WOMEN 27 Clerkenwell Close London ECIR OAT, England (tel. 012514978