Ruby Fay Wray makes her directorial debut during this year’s Toronto Independent Film Festival at The Carlton Cinema.
4th Wavers is a short documentary on the current fourth-wave feminism movement that recently gained steam with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement.
The current women’s movement began in 2008 and the documentary looks at how social media hashtags and art have been the main aggregators of the social movement.
“A lot of people are coming to terms with feminism because of the internet and social media.”
4th Wavers Director, Ruby Fay Wray, breastfeeding son Paxton.
Wray graced the red carpet with her assistant and six-month-old son, Paxton Walker Wray. She even posed for a photo op breastfeeding her son saying, “This is feminism in 2018. Being able to walk a red carpet while breastfeeding at my feminist film premiere,” said the 28-year-old film director.
The documentary began as her graduation project at Ryerson University and became a passion project after that. Wray fought her teacher and classmates to go on her own to make the feminist doc after they questioned the existence of fourth-wave feminism. “Just like the feminist movement, it’s in the resistance that we find our voice,” said Wray.
She wanted to give a voice to feminist artists and tell the story through them. One of the notable interviews in the film is slam poet, Charlie Petch, a transgendered male who’s poem titled, Bang Bang, explores the backlash of the film Mad Max by the MRA (Men’s Right’s Activists).
“One of the main components of the 4th Wave is intersectionality, I really wanted to emphasize that in this documentary,” said Wray
Intersectional feminism is having multiple identities intersect within the movement. These can include gender, social class, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, disability and mental illness as well as other identities. Previous waves often ignored these identities and “white feminism” undermined the multifaceted nature of feminism.
What’s next for 4th Wavers? “Well I’m hoping to sell the film in some capacity,” said Wray. “This is a message that needs to be heard.”
Wray is currently working on her next film–a memoir titled, Vacation Baby, based on her life. “It will still have strong feminist characters, but be a more realist take on a modern love story,” she says.