Movies Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives, Wisecracks, On The Eighth Day: Making Babies Perfect Similar Gail Singer, Susan Cavan, Boyce Richardson, Colin Low | ||
Virginia (Ginny) Stikeman (born 1941) is a Canadian filmmaker. She has directed, produced and edited many films, with her focus in documentaries. Her most well-known films are Sisters in Struggle (1991), Dream of a free country: a message from Nicaraguan women (1983), and Forbidden Love: The unashamed stories of Lesbian Lives (1992)
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Biography
Ginny Stikeman was born 1941 in Ottawa, Ontario. Her Full name is Virginia Stikeman.
Career
Stikeman began her career by training in editing and directing at the National Film Board of Canada in 1967. She did extensive work from 1973 to 1989 as a film editor. She participated in the Challenge for Change program for a few years, which granted communities the opportunity to create social change through the use of film and video. In 1975, she became and editor and director for Studio D. Studio D was a group of women directors who wanted to make changes in the film industry involving underrepresented groups in film, which they accomplished by promoting cultural and sexual diversity in film from 1990 to 1996. This difference was made by not only fighting and advocating for LGBTQ rights, but also by creating films that involved culture and sexual diversity.
Stikeman's films took on many controversial and influential topics, and were typically documentaries. Films such as Sisters in Struggle (1991) and Dream of a free country: a message from Nicaraguan women (1983) focus on women and diversity. As a lesbian herself, she created films that concerned sexuality and same sex relationships such as Forbidden Love: The unashamed stories of Lesbian Lives (1992) and Listening for Something (1996).
One of Stikeman's greatest achievements was Forbidden Love: The unashamed stories of Lesbian Lives (1992), which was a full length documentary directed by Lynn Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman. Stikeman was the executive producer for this film with Rina Fracticelli as well as Margaret Pettigrew. The producers of the film were Studio D and The National Film Board of Canada. This film concerned lesbian history of Canada in the 1950s and 1960s. It was broadcast around the world and received many awards, such as the Genie for Best Feature Length Documentary in Canada (1993), Best Documentary at the 15th International Film Festival in South Africa (1994) and Best Documentary at the Turin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Italy (1995).
After filmmaking, Stikeman started working for the Blue Metropolis foundation in Montreal, Quebec, which is a non-profit organization that promotes and encourages reading, writing and creativity for people of all cultures. The organization was founded in 1997 by Linda Leith. The Blue Metropolis Foundation produces the annual International Literary Festival with a variety of awards and prizes. Stikeman started sponsoring the Metropolis Azul Prize in 2013, which is awarded each year to an author from any country who creates a work of fiction that displays Spanish culture and/or history in either the language Spanish, English or French.
Filmography
Filmography from IMDb