By Woman's Hand
1994 · 58m · Canada
Directed by Pepita Ferrari
Genres: biography, documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, tender
Montreal women painters of the Beaver Hall circle sustain one another's art across three decades, seen through three leading members.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A reverent archival portrait of the Beaver Hall painters—competent enough, but it plays it entirely straight, missing the opportunity to interrogate why these women have been buried in the first place or to mess with the hagiography.
A formally rigorous meditation on artistic lineage and mutual sustenance; Ferrari's three-decade structure creates a measured argument about how women's artistic practices persist through community rather than individual genius, situating itself thoughtfully within both documentary and art-historical traditions.
The decision to follow three specific painters across time rather than survey the whole circle anchors abstraction into human specificity—that tightness of focus transforms what could be dusty archival work into something tactile and lived.