Film screening of Ovarian Psycos at Kino Endstation

Outreach Event in Bochum

The project “Bicycle Media: Cooperative Media of Mobility” presents the film Ovarian Psycos, a documentary by Joanna Sokolowski and Kate Trumbull-LaValle, on October 16.

Important Info

About Ovarian Psycos

Riding at night through the streets of Eastside Los Angeles is considered dangerous. But the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade, a misfit crew of feminist women of colour, use their bikes to confront the violence in their lives. In their first joint full-length film, Sokolowski und Trumbull- LaValle portray three of the crew protagonists: Xela de la X, founder of the group, single mother and rapper, street artist Andi, who aspires to become a leader in the crew, and bright-eyed recruit Evie.

»Our initial concept of the film was an all-out-super-heroine story. A story where confident, unwavering young women – the Ovas – take back the streets en masse, on bikes, shouting in the face of convention. But once we started production the film took a turn. The real super- heroine work was happening behind the scenes, in daily life, within their personal relationships as mothers, daughters, and sisters. We met working-class young women who were strong but vulnerable. Feminism isn’t something the Ovas choose, but it has been inherited. Inherited from living in a community politicised by the civil rights movement, and by the realities and challenges of growing up within the context of colonisation, immigration, racism, misogyny and gendered violence. These were women dramatising power and freedom on their bikes, at night, publicly in the streets, and at the same time struggling to hold onto that same power as single mothers, aspiring artists, students and working women.«

– Joanna Sokolowski and Kate Trumbull-LaValle.

This event is organized in cooperation with the Bochumer Cycling Club Windkante, Ruhr University Bochum (Chair of Gender Media Studies) and the SFB Media of Cooperation.