We have just celebrated International Women’s Day when it is customary for our social media feeds to start filling up with messages of empowering women. But obviously, celebrating being a woman shouldn’t just happen on an annual basis. And furthermore, the joy of knowing how far we have come should not overshadow the work that remains to be done. We need to be more aware of the issues of intersectional feminism in our everyday life. One of these issues is the fact that women still cannot feel safe on the streets of Berlin. “I’M BORED”, a short film by Chelsea Herbert and Alex Newton, is an honest and ultimately hopeful reflection on street harassment by a girl who has had enough.
Alex Newton, who directed the video, explained the idea behind it on his IG profile, Tall Guy Pictures: “A few years ago my boyfriend and I Chelsea were throwing up some ideas for a short film project we could work on together. Although we went so far as to do a bit of filming, we never managed to settle on a concept that we were both completely happy with. Then one day Chelsea was harassed by two guys on her way home from the gym – which was not an irregular event. Frustrated, she sent me a monologue, in the form of a voice message, describing how bored she was going through these experiences of street harassment. She wasn’t angry, nor particularly upset, just… bored.
In the short, whimsical shots of Berlin are intertwined with the uncomfortable scene of Chelsea struggling to end an awkward conversation with a man who stubbornly tries to continue it – a scenario that’s all too familiar to many women. . We also hear the entirety of Chelsea’s monologue, which lists some of the many ways women are affected by the very real threat of harassment, such as “having to instantly check my body language so I don’t look very vulnerable when a guy is approaching me in the street “or” walking down the street with my hand in my pocket on my keys in case I need to take them out. “
“I’m bored” ends on a positive note, however. As Chelsea Herbert explains in a quote published by Newton: “I am optimistic about the future, and slowly but surely we are seeing changes.” But for this change to really happen, we both need to engage in conversations about such topics and, as Chelsea Herbert and Alex Newton both advocate, recognize such behavior in real life.
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by Michalina
March 10, 2021
in the videos