Film maker Midge Mckenzie

Alan had given Jill a cameo of Shakespeare. He then gave it to Midge, after Jill died. Midge was a great party giver. We went to her memorial in Highbury.

Shoulder to Shoulder with Midge MacKenzie

Ellen Shub a freelance photojournalist, and friend of Midge MacKenzie's, whose work over the past three decades has focused on social justice issues and activism in the US.


Filmmaker Midge McKenzie at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA in April 2000 after a screening of John Houston: War Stories
Photo © Ellen Shub

MacKenzie, an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose life's work focused on feminism, peace, human rights, and social justice, died in January. She was 65 and died at home in London of cardiac arrest after a lengthy battle with cancer.

A crusading social activist with flaming red hair, characteristic wide-brimmed Stetson hats, turquoise bracelets and rings, and cowboy boots, she campaigned with relentless tenacity and insight to document women's history in the United States, Great Britain, and the world. She was tirelessly dedicated to creating a more just, peaceful world that respected the human rights of women and the value of authentic community.

She is perhaps best known for her 1975 Masterpiece Theatre television series and book, Shoulder to Shoulder, enlivening the history of the British women's struggle for suffrage.

For me personally, that series and book, with images of women being force-fed while on hunger strikes in prison, made feminism real to me. It has inspired me to photograph women's issues in America for over 30 years.

Mackenzie documented the women's movement, and allied social justice movements, in film. Women Talking Betty Friedan and Kate Millet talking about raising consciousness. She filmed Jane Fonda testifying about her trip to Hanoi, and created the film As I Stand Here Ironing on the stories of Tillie Olsen. She also threw tomatoes at Bob Hope at the Miss World contest in London, and as an ardent anti-apartheid activist, staged a reenactment of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre on London's Lyceum stage.

Mackenzie collaborated with Amnesty International to create The Sky: A Silent Witness human rights abuses seen through the eyes of women. It follows the journey of Guatemalans to reclaim the remains of 180 massacre victims and features women from across the globe, including a Tibetan Buddhist nun, a Tiananmen Square demonstrator, and an African-American civil rights worker, testifying about human rights abuses in their own countries.

She created a strong anti-war film, John Huston: War Stories, in 1999, which centered on an interview with director John Huston and the footage, banned by the US War Department at the time, he shot in World War II in Italy,

She was a founding member of the New England Chapter of Women in Film and Video, taught film history at the Carpenter Center for the Study of Visual Arts at Harvard, created multimedia events with the Joffrey Ballet, Prisoners of Childhood based on the work of psychologist Alice Miller, and films on remote communities in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

A memorial attended by friends from London, New York, and Massachusetts was held April 17th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, where clips of her films and personal remembrances were shared.