"Judy Chicago & the California Girls" is a lively and engaging documentary on a significant moment in the history of feminist art and pedagogy. Filmmaker Judith Dancoff gets lots of credit for recognizing and preserving a unique moment in the history of American art."

Gail Levin, historian and author of Becoming JudyChicago: A Biography of the Artist


"Energy and a sense of forging new paths are palpable...it was impossible for me to ignore this film's personal significance."

Feminist Collections, 2008

At the height of the 1970's Women's Movement, on the cusp of revolutionary change, American artist Judy Chicago began a unique experiment: to train only young women artists in an all-woman art program at Fresno State College. So many young women were going into art schools, Chicago states, so few coming out the other end as professional artists. The film "Judy Chicago & the California Girls" documents this first all-woman art program, in a compelling and candid portrait of a country and culture in the midst of great social change. Highlights include a visit by radical feminist theorist Ti-Grace Atkinson, Chicago's early performance pieces the "Cock Cunt Play" and the "Cunt Cheer", and Chicago's female-centered philosophy that shaped her later work. Some of Chicago's students who appear in the film and went on to become important artists in their own right include Faith Wilding, Suzanne Lacy, Nancy Youdelman and Vanalyne Green.

Awards, Festivals, Screenings and Collections:

- Los Angeles International Film Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Armand Hammer Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Geneva, California Institute for the Arts, Otis College of Art & Design, Princeton University, Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University, Vassar College, the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, the University of Chicago, the University of California, the University of Capetown, South Africa, and numerous other institutions.