Near the Big Chakra (1971)

• 65%
• 1971
• Alice Anne Parker Severson

Extreme close-ups of 38 vulvas, aged three months to fifty-six years, including two blacks, one half-oriental girl, two lesbians, one prostitute, two adult virgins, three mothers to be, three grandmothers, four women menstruating, one girl with gonorrhea (learned just days after the shoot), a woman who learned she had uterine cancer three weeks after the shoot, and a lot of mothers. Intended as an educational film by and for women, but screened to mixed audiences, the women photographed were mostly friends and acquaintances, or children of friends and acquaintances, of the director. The Glide Methodist Church's education division, which specialized in community service related to sexuality and pregnancy, produced the film, despite the director's male colleagues finding the concept unsavory.