Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am

In the early days of the Women's Movement, a young mother examines her limited choices.

1970

5 mins

Filmed in 1969, this poignant portrait of a young mother helped to give voice to a generation of American women whose opportunities and career choices were extremely limited. It was one of the first independent films of the fledgling Women’s Movement. Many of these limits are still experienced by women today.

…a realistic image of many women's feelings during the early years of child rearing. Since many attitudes toward the wife-mother role are imposed on our young women through Bride magazine and soap-commercial optimism, it is good for them to see another view.

Jeanne Betancourt

Women in Focus

Synopsis

Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am was one of the first independent films of the early Women’s Movement. For women brought up in the soap commercial optimism of the time, it articulated the fear which caught them unawares as they found themselves isolated in their homes, cleaning up after their children, and dreaming of the careers they might have had.

This brief portrait of a young mother grew out of the experiences of a group of women who found - as they haltingly expressed to one another their feelings of emptiness, anger, and fear - that they were not alone. This film helped to give voice to a generation of American women whose expectations, opportunities and career choices were extremely limited. It is a poignant artistic reminder of what it was like to be a woman in 1969. Many of these feelings are still real for women today.

Reviews

A brief, succinct study of the conflict felt by a young woman who is a housewife and who dreams of the career she could have had. The camera's slow methodical exploration of the woman's pensive face and the confined environment of her kitchen as she washes dishes, prepares a meal, feeds her baby, and cleans up again underlines her hesitating contem¬plation of her life and feelings as a wife and mother, the reaction of her hus¬band to her emerging feelings, the sen¬sation that people think of her only as her husband's wife or baby's mother, and the thought of what she will be like in 10 years.

The Booklist

American Library Association

One of the first independent films to come out of the women's movement, it articulated for many women the fear which caught them unawares as they worked around their kitchens, cleaned up after their children, or lay wide-eyed and sleepless beside their husbands at night.

Catherine Egan

Sightlines

Though it only lasts five minutes, it captures the essence of the female state. One is made to feel the yearning and fragmentation of a person who spends eight-plus hours a day with only an infant for company and no way to act because of that isolation.”

“The film is a poignant artistic reminder of what it is to be a woman.

Nancy Williamson

Boston After Dark

… the reflections of a young mother as she makes lunch, feeds her baby, cleans up. It could be anyone. She's bored, depressed, feels guilty about wasting her talents but even more guilty at the thought of depriv¬ing her child of a full-time mother and her husband of the kind of love that focuses only on him.

Sandra Soehngen

Media and Methods Magazine

Director Commentary

Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am was based on the feelings women expressed in my Bread and Roses collective in Cambridge, MA, one of the first “Women’s Liberation” groups in the country in 1969. This short film became one of the first independent films of the fledgling women’s movement. It raised issues that had rarely been dealt with on film.

When I made this film, there were few women making films and even fewer films dealing with women’s political issues. This was one of the first films to be used in consciousness raising groups. Because it broke new ground, Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am was at the forefront of both the Women’s Movement and in the (until then predominantly male) independent political film movement. It helped to demonstrate that film could be a powerful tool to raise social consciousness and promote change in regard to critical women’s issues.

News of the film spread primarily through word of mouth and women’s movement newsletters. (There was no internet, cable, email, YouTube, etc. and network TV wasn’t interested.) Although the distribution network was informal and I shipped the prints from my home, the film was used by hundreds of libraries, colleges and women’s consciousness raising groups across the US and in Canada.

The film was screened at the legendary Orson Wells Theatre in Cambridge, MA, the Nederlands Film Museum in Amsterdam, and was featured in the Women in Film Tour sponsored by the Canadian Government. Aired on WGBH-TV, Boston in 1970, the film was one of the earliest “feminist” films shown on public television.

The film was restored with a grant from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund in 2022. It is distributed by New Day Films, the cooperative that I co-founded in 1971.

Promotional Material

Promotional Stills

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Liane Brandon

Liane Brandon is an award winning independent filmmaker, photographer and University of Massachusetts/Amherst Professor Emeritus. Her groundbreaking films Anything You Want To Be and Betty Tells Her Story were among the first and most popular consciousness raising tools of the Women's Movement. Her films have been featured on HBO, Cinemax, the Criterion Channel and at MoMA, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Barbican Centre in London and the Tribeca Film Festival. She is a co-founder of New Day Films.

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