Ovarian Psycos

Based in the heart of Los Angeles’ Eastside, and building upon the legacy of the Chicano/a and civil rights movement, the irreverently named Ovarian Psycos Cycle Brigade are a ferocious and unapologetic group of young women of color, cycling through the barrios and boulevards of the Eastside, committed to collectively… Show more confronting racism and violence, and demanding and creating safe spaces for women. Show less

Film Signature Image
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
March 27, 2017
Length
60 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
Diversity Development Fund
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Director/Producer

Joanna Sokolowski

Joanna Sokolowski is an Emmy Award-winning producer and creative nonfiction storyteller. Her documentary work has been broadcast on HBO, Netflix, and PBS. Her podcasts have won Webby Awards and are streamed on Stitcher and Spotify. Her critically acclaimed feature documentary Ovarian Psychos premiered at SXSW and on PBS's Independent Lens.

Other ITVS Films
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Director/Producer

Kate Trumbull

Kate Trumbull-LaValle is a Los Angeles-based independent documentary filmmaker who first began in the field of social justice media as an educator and program coordinator for the Media Arts Center San Diego and the San Diego Latino Film Festival. She directed the short documentary, Abaayo/Sister (2012), an intimate portrait of two Somali friends… Show more caught in a cultural tug-of-war. Kate is also associate producer, assistant editor, and archival researcher for Renee Tajima-Peña’s feature length PBS documentary, No More Babies for Life , which profiles the history of Mexican American women coercively sterilized at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and 1970s. In 2013, she formed Sylvia Frances Films with Joanna Sokolowski to direct her first feature documentary, The Ovarian Psycos. Trumbull-LaValle is a UC Berkeley Human Rights Fellow (2010) and graduated with an M.A. from the Social Documentation Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Show less

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The Film

Bicycles? Check. Bandanas? Check. The Ovarian Psycos gear up and ride out into the night, fanning out in pairs of two, four, and six. In constant motion, cruising up and down the storied streets of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, and Lincoln Heights, they call out to new riders to join them in a journey through the neighborhood. “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Since forming in the summer of 2011 by activist, poet M.C., and single mother, Xela de la X, the Ova’s have made it their mission to cycle for the purpose of healing, reclaiming their neighborhoods, and creating safer streets for women on the Eastside. At first only attracting a few local women, over the past few years the Ovarian Psycos have inspired a ferocious and unapologetic crowd of local heroines who are a visible force along the barrios and boulevards of Los Angeles. The film Ovarian Psycos rides along with them, exploring the impact of the group’s brand of feminism on neighborhood women and communities as they confront injustice, racism, and violence.

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