The Women's Kingdom

Filmmaker Xiaoli Zhou won a Student Academy Award for this intriguing short documentary on a hitherto unknown Mosuo ethnic minority culture within a remote corner of southwestern China. Mosuo society bucks the gender roles traditionally found in most Western and Eastern countries: women do not marry, but instead perform “living marriages” where men are invited to spend a “sweet night” before being shooed away by daybreak. The women also control their own finances, and the birth of girls is seen as a reason for celebration (as opposed to the rest of China, where infant girls have been routinely killed or abandoned in orphanages). Yet the Mosuo women do not think of themselves as feminists (at least not in the Western sense of the term), and the men of the community don't consider their environment to be peculiar. If anything, the Mosuo abhor the Western influences that modernization has brought to their long-isolated world (the film highlights how media misrepresentation of the Mosuo has brought about a thriving sex trade on its fringes). Uncommonly mature and sophisticated for a student film, The Women's Kingdom does a fine job of presenting an overview of a fascinating and complex culture. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)