Sixth International Women’s Film Festival
Thursday evenings at 7 P.M.
January 31 – March 14, 2002
Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre
639 Main Street, Buffalo NY (across from Shea’s Theater)
Ticket prices: $6.50 general admission
and $4.50 students
January
31st screening of "The Gleaners & I" and
March 14th screening of "Venus Beauty Institute" are FREE.
The series of seven features will offer quality films made by women that showcase the experience of women and the views of women directors from around the world. This year, films depict women’s lives and perspectives in France, India, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and the U.S. The stories and themes deal with gleaning food, ideas, and art in France; a girl’s recounting of the summer of 1947 in pre-partition India; women stand-up comics; women living under apartheid in South Africa; how women count in the global economy and the value of their work; Zapotec women’s lives, culture, music, and work in Oaxaca, Mexico; and love and work in a Parisian beauty spa. On March 7th, for International Women’s Day, we will have the director of BLOSSOMS OF FIRE, Maureen Gosling, present and talk about her filming and work in Mexico with the indigenous Zapotec community in Juchitan.
| 2002 Dates | Title | Year | Country/Country where filmed |
| 1/31 | The Gleaners and I | (2000) | France |
| 2/07 | Earth | (1999) | Canada / India |
| 2/14 | Wisecracks | (1992) | Canada |
| 2/21 | Friends | (1998) | Britain / South Africa |
| 2/28 | Who’s Counting | (1994) | Canada / New Zealand |
| 3/07 | Blossoms of Fire | (2000) | USA / Mexico |
| 3/14 | Venus Beauty Institute | (1999) | France |
January
31
FREE SCREENING Jan. 31st to
start off the festival!
Les Glaneurs Et La Glaneuse (The Gleaners and
I)
France, 2000, 82 min. Documentary Color 35 mm
Director: Agnes Varda
An intimate, picaresque inquiry into French life, as lived by the country's
poor and its provident, as well as by the film’s own director, Agnès
Varda. The aesthetic, political and finally moral point of departure for Varda
are gleaners, those individuals who pick at already-reaped fields for the odd
potato, the leftover turnip, and in previous generations were immortalized by
the likes of Millet and Van Gogh. Varda isn't particularly interested in immortalizing
today's gleaners but in investigating the reasons that lead the anonymous and
the celebrated (including a famous chef) to sift through our detritus. Along
her journey, Varda constructs a portrait of France that is every bit as modern
as the digital camera with which she does her filming, and in the process comes
up with her finest, most effective work since Vagabond. [from New York Film
Festival catalogue]
For more info go to:
http://www.zeitgeistfilm.com/current/gleaners/gleaners.html
** Introduction by Anne-Laure Bucher, Visiting Assistant Professor, Modern Languages
& Literatures, UB
Earth
India/Canada, 1999, 104 min. Color, 35 mm
In Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi with English subtitles
Director: Deepa Mehta
Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's critically acclaimed novel, Cracking India, is the second film in Mehta's trilogy of the elements, Fire, Earth and Water.
Lenny is an eight-year-old Parsee girl who is growing
up rich in pre-partition Lahore in 1947, enjoying the warm, enveloping life
that loving parents and a filial household staff brings. She travels daily to
the nearby Queens Gardens with her beautiful Ayah (nanny), Shanta, a young Hindu
woman with a smile and manner that ensures a constant supply of eager male suitors.
These men are a mixed bunch: Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, and similarly the staff
serving Lenny and her well-heeled family are a happy collection of the religious
groups represented in India.
When the film opens, the British are finally preparing to quit their empire
in India and the searing process of splitting British India into Independent
India and Pakistan is about to begin. Angry Hindus storm through Lahore one
day, and angry Muslims the next. Then the serious killing begins. Hindus and
Sikhs attack Muslims; Muslims attack Hindus and Sikhs.
Lenny's family is spared the slaughter because the neutral Parsees are not part
of the politics and the bloodletting. But a Muslim mob arrives one day at their
front gate. The family will not be touched, but the mob wants all the Hindu
servants and that includes Ayah.
The destruction of innocence by desire and greed wearing the garb of religion and nationalism was the price of this sectarian war.
For more info go to: http://www.zeitgeistfilm.com/current/earth/earthstory.html
For interview with Deepa Mehta go to: http://www.himalmag.com/98Dec/deepa.htm
February
14
Wisecracks
Canada 1992, 90 min. Color, 16 mm Documentary
Director: Gail Singer
"Perceptive documentary on the politically charged field
of stand-up comedy, as practiced by 24 working (women) comics." New Yorker Films.
Includes comics such as Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Kim Wayans, Pam Stone,
Jenny Jones (?!), Robin Tyler. Has scenes from Improv appearances, vintage footage
of Lucille Ball, Mae West, many other ‘oldtimers’. The women speak directly
to the issue of being female in a male-dominated field.
Female comedians: http://www.comediansusa.com/female
Links to gay/ lesbian comedians:
http://www.qcomedy.com/links.html
** Introduction of film by Jennifer Gold - WBFO commentator
February
21
Friends
Britain/ South Africa, 1998, 109 min. Color, 35 mm
Dir. Elaine Proctor
Passion and politics mix in this powerful drama set in South Africa about three
young women, all close friends. Sophie is a white political activist, Thoko
is a black schoolteacher, and Annika is an Afrikaner archaeologist. When Sophie
plants a bomb that accidentally kills two innocent people, passionate and blinding
forces test the strength of the women's friendship.
This film, a British and European Union production filmed in South Africa, has
an extraordinary production team of women directing, scripting, filming, and
creating the music for this first feature by Elaine Proctor.
For more information go to: http://www.firstrunfeatures.com/vid/friends.html
For more info on women’s struggles in South Africa and the ANC go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/women/
For information on Women in South Africa go to:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/southafrica/rsawomen.html
** Introduction of film by Alexis DeVeaux, Assistant Professor, Department of Women’s Studies, UB
Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics
1995, 94 minutes Documentary Color 16 mm
Director: Terre Nash
Marilyn Waring is the foremost spokesperson for global
feminist economics, and her ideas offer new avenues of approach for political
action. With persistence and wit she has succeeded in drawing attention to the
fact that GDP has no negative side to its accounts--such as damage to the environment--and
completely ignores the unpaid work of women. "Why is the market economy all
that counts?" Ms. Waring asks.
In 1975, when she was just 22 years old, she was elected to the New Zealand
parliament. She was re-elected three times, and eventually brought down the
government on the issue of making New Zealand a nuclear free zone. When
she was chairperson of the Public Expenditures Committee, she perfected what
she calls the "art of the dumb question". Ever since she has challenged the
myths of economics, its elitist stance, and our tacit compliance with political
agendas that masquerade as objective economic policy.
For more information go to:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html
“Who’s Counting” Project website: http://home.earthlink.net/~mediatorken/
** Introduction of film by Susan Davis, Professor, Buffalo State College & Ruth Meyerowitz, Associate Professor, Center for the Americas, UB
Ramos de Fuego / Blossoms of Fire
2000, USA, 74 min. Color 16 mm
Producer-Director-Editor: Maureen Gosling Director/Co-Producer Ellen Osborne
Author Elena Ponlatowska described the legendary women
of Juchitan, a city in Oaxaca, Mexico, as 'guardians of men, distributors of
food.' Artists like Migues Covarublas and Frida Kahlo celebrated their beauty
and intelligence. Blossoms of Fire shows them in all their brightly colored,
opinionated glory as they run their businesses, embroider their signature fiery
blossoms on clothing and comment with angry humor on articles in the foreign
press that flippantly and inaccurately depict them as a promiscuous matriarchy.
The people interviewed in this film share a strong work ethic and fierce independent
streak rooted in Zapotec culture. These qualities have resulted not only in
powerful women but also in the region's progressive politics, manifested in
their unusual tolerance of homosexuality. Veteran film editor and former Les
Blank collaborator Maureen Gosling and codirector Ellen Osborne illuminate the
infectious self-confidence of the Juchitecan people. Their lives may be hard,
and maintaining Zapotec culture and language may be an ongoing battle, but it's
plain that not one of these individuals - man, woman, young, old, gay, straight
- would willingly change places with anyone in the first world. --- by Pam Troy,
San Francisco International Film Festival
For more information go to:
http://www.reelmind.com/maureengosling
** Introduction of film BY THE DIRECTOR, Maureen Gosling, and Jolene Rickard, Associate Professor, Art and Art History, UB
March
14
Venus Beauty Institute
France, 1999, 107 min, Color 35 mm
Director: Tonie Marshall
We are obsessed with beauty. Outward appearance and the pursuit of perfection–particularly for women–is an industry, a way of life, a major part of Western culture and, ultimately, for better or worse, how we judge others. It is also a tool for selling everything from magazines to movie tickets. For some, the creation and pursuit of physical beauty is a way to make a living. For others, it is a way to spend the day, a way to help others feel better about themselves, a mere daily ritual or a miraculous cure for the blues.
With Venus Beauty Institute, French writer/director Tonie Marshall takes us into the world of beauty and self-image and into the lives of four strong, smart women who make their living practicing beauty at a Parisian spa.
Angele (played by Nathalie Baye, one of France’s leading actresses) is a sexy woman in her early 40s whose guilt and anguish over having caused permanent harm to a loved one is offset by a hedonistic and reckless series of one-night stands. Marie is an exceptionally beautiful woman whose guileless innocence brings happiness to an enigmatic widower. Samantha, a cherubic and defiant young flirt, substitutes sexuality for companionship. And Nadine, the spa’s matriarch (who at an earlier time in her life might have been just like Angele), is ambitious and talented but without the self-confidence to be successful.
For more information go to: http://www.lot47.com/VideoDVD/VenusBeautyInstitute.html
** Introduction of film by Jeannette Ludwig, Associate Professor, Modern Languages and Literatures, UB