10th edition CIFF – 10-14 April 2024

FILMS 2024:  Caribbean Focus | Feature Films | Short Films | Yellow Robin Award Nominees
FILMS 2019: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2018: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2017: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2016: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film
FILMS 2015: A – E | F – L | M – P | Q – S | T –  Z | Feature Film | Short Film

Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary (2018 Feature Film)

MUSIC CALLS_This raw, energetic documentary follows six women, all of whom want to become the best Dancehall Queen in the world. It’s not just pop divas such as Beyoncé and Miley who imitate the provocative Jamaican dance style – anonymous women from Spain, America, Poland and Japan are also making this their emancipatory life goal.

Marisol Gómez Mouakad | Puerto Rico, Mexico | 2016 | color | DCP | 90 min | Spanish, English | e.s.

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Dancehall is a dance style often criticized as being sexist by objectifying women. The documentary Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary convincingly shows that this is a misunderstanding. One of the interviewees pointedly compares the extravagance of dancehall with punk rock: these women are doing what they want, they feel liberated when they are dancing, and the dance is an expression of who they are.

This dynamic documentary follows a number of women – from Japan, Italy, America, Poland, Spain, and of course Jamaica – as they prepare for the International Dancehall Queen competition in Jamaica, the birthplace of dancehall. For these women, dancehall is also a way of escaping their backgrounds and pain – of temporarily being in a different world. They all have nicknames, and for some of them this has become a liberating alter ego. Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary portrays an energetic subculture bursting with ‘female empowerment’, in all its glory. 

Place: The Cinemas 3

Date: 11 April 2018

Time: 22:00

Duration: 0:52

Place: The Cinemas 4

Date: 12 April 2018

Time: 22:30

Duration: 0:52

Place: The Cinemas 5

Date: 13 April 2018

Time: 15:15

Duration: 0:52

Place: The Cinemas 3

Date: 15 April 2018

Time: 21:30

Duration: 0:52

Year in
Festival

2018

Director

Cori WAPNOWSKI

Camera

USA

Cast

x

Country

Joshua Mayes
Jeremy Rogers

Editor

David Herr

Language

English

Length

69′

Music

Nikhil P. Yerawadekar

Producer

Cori Wapnowski

Production Company

Video Disco

Sales

Gunpowder & Sky

Sound Design

Travis Breitenbach

Year of Production

2017

Website

https://brukoutmovie.com/

Cori WAPNOWSKI (for this film credited as Cori McKenna) is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker based in New York. She has edited dozens of TV shows and documentaries, including HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She directed Refinery 29’s documentary series What We Teach Girls (2015-2016), a global exploration of the lessons and values girls are taught. McKenna’s debut feature Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary (2017) looks deep into the world of Jamaican Dancehall culture through the eyes of the women dancers, Dancehall Queens. McKenna’s passion is connecting people and ideas through documentary storytelling.

 

Filmography

(all doc) What We Teach Girls (2015-2016, TV series), Bruk Out! A Dancehall Queen Documentary (2017)