Sisters with Transistors | Telescope Film
Sisters with Transistors

Sisters with Transistors

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This documentary, narrated by artist and musician Laurie Anderson, tells the story of the women who pioneered electronic music. Using contemporary and archival interviews and footage, the film shows how women across the history of electronic music were able to use new tools to upend established systems and ideas.

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What are critics saying?

100

The Guardian by Leslie Felperin

Lisa Rovner’s superb documentary pays a deeply deserved, seldom-expressed tribute to the female composers, musicians and inventors from the brief history of electronic music.

100

RogerEbert.com by Charlie Brigden

The narrative, which is wonderfully told through a kind of archival collage that, along with the futuristic soundtrack of the profiled composers, makes it feel like an avant-garde art film.

90

Film Threat

Perhaps one day, gender will cease to be an object of discrimination, but that day is still far off. In the meantime, we need warriors like these brilliant composers to wage war against a stacked patriarchal system.

90

Los Angeles Times by Katie Walsh

The film is a vital historical corrective, inscribing the names of these women into history as the innovators, independent thinkers and trailblazers they were.

90

Film Threat by Chuck Foster

Perhaps one day, gender will cease to be an object of discrimination, but that day is still far off. In the meantime, we need warriors like these brilliant composers to wage war against a stacked patriarchal system.

80

The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide

What a joy is a documentary that neither talks down to its audience nor diminishes its subject.

80

Wall Street Journal by John Anderson

That the film is online because of the Covid-19 pandemic might be considered a silver lining: Not only will more people be able to see it, but they can, and should, experience it through headphones. A big screen would be nice, too, given Ms. Rovner’s hallucinogenic way with pictures. But the sound, as she would probably agree, is paramount.

80

The Irish Times by Tara Brady

There’s nary a dull moment – nor a dull character – in this gripping history.

75

Slant Magazine by Wes Greene

Much of the film’s power comes from a series of deft, often wry juxtapositions between video and audio.

70

Rolling Stone by Claire Shaffer

While it is gratifying to hear each woman speak on her art in her own terms, the documentary’s most illuminating moments are those that demonstrate how each musician’s work has been received by others over the years.

70

The New York Times by Glenn Kenny

This film is informative and often fascinating.

70

Rolling Stone

While it is gratifying to hear each woman speak on her art in her own terms, the documentary’s most illuminating moments are those that demonstrate how each musician’s work has been received by others over the years.