Who Is Filibus?
Cinema's first gender-fluid, cross-dressing, anti-hero, steampunk, sky pirate.
Filibus is a ground breaking 1915 Italian silent adventure film.
Film trailers asked, “Who is Filibus???”
She’s a mysterious female super-villain who makes daring heists with her futuristic airship. Plus she’s a master of disguise, slipping between various male and female identities to romance her rival’s sister and stage a midnight theft of a pair of valuable diamonds.
(Filibus from filibuster: pirate)1
It was revolutionary adventure film for its time - presenting an all-powerful female character in full control of her life and actions - a cross-dressing antiheroine, heralded by some as cinema’s first lesbian. A far cry from the lives lived by Italian women of the era.
While Filibus was flying over Italy in 1915, the women below were lagging behind their western European sisters when it came to civil rights. Married women couldn’t get divorced, they couldn’t inherit property, or even subscribe to a newspaper without their husband’s authorization. ~ Monica Nolan
When an esteemed detective sets out on her trail, Filibus begins an elaborate game of cat and mouse with him, slipping between various male and female identities to romance the detective's sister and stage a midnight theft of a pair of valuable diamonds.
Filibus charms the characters around her and delights the viewer with her heroics, ingenuity and visionary gadgets.
In a 2014 review of the film, Claude Rieffel praised the film's "elegant and elusive woman pirate,” saying that Filibus's ability to pass between male and female identities made the character "a champion of transgenderism before that term had been coined." ~ Wikipedia
You can watch the entire film here at Archive.org and a contemporary trailer below.
Filibuster: late 18th century: from French flibustier, first applied to pirates who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies. In the mid 19th century (via Spanish filibustero), the term denoted American adventurers who incited revolution in several Latin American states, whence filibuster. Later the verb was used to describe tactics intended to sabotage US congressional proceedings, whence filibuster.
More tough women …
Medieval Divorce by Combat (1467)
Divorce by combat appears to have been a form of trial by combat. Trial by combat was part of Germanic law that dealt with accusations between two parties where there were no witnesses or a confession. Whoever won the duel was deemed to be right. It was essentially a legally-sanctioned duel.
Women on the Warpath (1900)
This is the header image to a full page Sunday story on women and how Chicago police records document women’s weapon of choice. The article is decidedly anti-female and casts women as taking advantage of unarmed men. WOMAN HAS PET WEAPONS. Grabs First Thing Comes to Hand Hit Man.
Great stuff. Those graphics alone draw you in. I'd say this one's long overdue for a reboot!
I'll have to watch the film. I wonder if the popularity of French film serial "Les Vampires" (1915-1916), whose main characters were Irma Vep and her band of bat costumed jewel thieves, played into creation of Filibus? It's also interesting that both of these came out right when the women's suffrage movement was still in mind even as WW1 was starting to ramp up.