8th International Women's Film Festival 2004
Thursdays, February 5 - March 11, 2004
All shows 7 pm
Market Arcade Film & Arts Centre
639 Main St. Buffalo NY 14203
Across from Shea's
Tickets: $7.50 general/$5.50 students with ID/ $5 seniors & HALLWALLS members
For information call 716.829.3451
Get a copy of the Flyer >> HERE
<< or the In-depth program >> HERE
<<
Welcome to the Eighth International Women's Film Festival!
The Festival runs every Thursday night, from February 5 through March 11 at
the Market Arcade Film & Arts Centre. The Gender Institute (Institute for Research
& Education on Women & Gender) is pleased to offer another outstanding series
of quality films made by women that portray the experience of women and the
views of women directors from around the world. This year, films depict women's
lives and perspectives in Canada, India, Iran, Japan, France, and the United
States. The anthology film SEPTEMBER 11 includes views from Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Burkino Faso, Egypt, Israel, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
We hope you will enjoy and learn from these films, and support women in film
through your attendance throughout the six weeks of the International Women's
Film Festival.
Barbara J. Bono, Ph.D. Director, Gender Institute Associate Professor, Dept.
of English University at Buffalo
THE FOURTH DIMENSION
Screening Date: February 5 Title: THE FOURTH DIMENSION
Year: 2001
Director: Trinh T. Minh-ha Country: U.S.A. Length: 87 min. Format: DVCAM Feature,
Color
Website: www.wmm.com
Synopsis: Acclaimed filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha (director of
A Tale of Love screened as part of Buffalo's 2nd International Women's Film
Festival in 1997; she also appeared in Buffalo in 1989 for a screening of her
film, Surname Viet Given Name Nam) ventures into the digital realm with her
stunning new feature The Fourth Dimension, an incisive and insightful examination
of Japan through its art, culture, and social rituals. As is the case with Trinh's
previous films, her new video is a multilayered work addressing issues around
its central theme: the experience of time, the impossibility of truly "seeing,"
and the impact of video on image-making. "Trinh T. Minh-ha's newest essayistic
work and her first videotape, cuts an intricate key for unlocking this elusive
culture. Her tack finds great visual pleasure in the everyday, composing and
decomposing the social landscape, while constructing a poetic grid of temporalities,
symbolic meanings, and ritual. In The Fourth Dimension, Trinh's lyrical narration
guides us through 'Japan's likeness,' the perfected framing of the sacramental
familiar." -- Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archives.
"The Fourth Dimension" is an elegant meditation on time, travel, and ceremony
in the form of a journey. In her first foray into digital video, Minh-ha deconstructs
the role of ritual in mediating between the past and the present. She explains,
"Shown in their widespread functions and manifestations, including more evident
loci such as festivals, religious rite and theatrical performance, 'rituals'
involve not only the regularity in the structure of everyday life, but also
the dynamic agents in the world of meaning." With its lush imagery, Minh-ha's
Japan is viewed through mobile frames, with doors and windows sliding shut,
revealing new vistas as it blocks out the old light.
CHAOS <<<Free Screening>>>
Screening Date: February 12 Title: CHAOS Year: 2003
Director: Coline Serreau Country: France Length: 109 min. Format: 35 mm Feature,
Color
INTRODUCTION by Jeannette Ludwig, Romance
Languages & Literatures, UB
Website: www.newyorkerfilms.com
Synopsis: Hélène and Paul are a bourgeois French
couple who are constantly racing through the day to keep up with all of their
obligations, barely taking the time to look at each other. As they are rushing
off to an engagement, Paul and Hélène witness Malika, a young
prostitute, being violently attacked by a group of men just outside of their
car. As Malika is beaten and left for dead, Paul locks the doors and speeds
off. Malika ends up hospitalized and in a coma. Hélène visits
her in the hospital, assists her throughout her recovery, and becomes a partner
with Malika in seeking revenge on those responsible for the human trafficking
that results in forced prostitution and other violence against women. Serreau
works her trademark combination of drama, comedy, and social critique most effectively
in “Chaos.”
www.ritzfilmbill.com/editorial/synopses/chaos.shtml
“Think RUN LOLA RUN meets THELMA & LOUISE.”
Bilge Eberi, New York Magazine.
MARION BRIDGE
Screening Date: February 19 Title: MARION BRIDGE Year:
2002
Director: Wiebke von Carolsfeld Country: Canada Length: 90 min. Format: 35mm
Feature, Color
INTRODUCTION by Kass Banning, Cinema Studies,
University of Toronto
Website: www.filmmovement.com
Synopsis: Agnes (Molly Parker), in the midst of a struggle
to overcome her own self destructive behavior, returns to Sydney, Nova Scotia
from Toronto because of the failing health of her mother Rose (Marguerite McNeil).
She is met by her older sister Theresa (Rebecca Jenkins), a devout Catholic
who has recently been dumped by her husband for a younger woman, and Louise
(Stacy Smith), the middle child who has retreated from the outside world. Her
arrival sets in motion a chain of events that allows the family to reconnect
with the world and one another. Also described as “a Canadian King Lear”.
SEPTEMBER 11 / 11’09”01
Screening Date: February 26 Title: SEPTEMBER 11 / 11'09"01
Year: 2002
Director: 11 international directors Country: France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burkino
Faso, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States
of America Length: 134 min. Format: 35 mm Feature, Color
INTRODUCTION by Bernadette Wegenstein, Media
Study, UB
Website: www.empirepicturesusa.com
Synopsis: SEPTEMBER 11 shows us an example of cinematic and
artistic creation coming out of the ashes of that day in 2001 in New York, Pennsylvania,
and Virginia.
An unorthodox look at the repercussions of the terrorist attacks on September
11, 2001 is presented in this collection of short films by eleven directors
from eleven countries about how people from all walks of life were changed that
day. Two of the films are directed by women. Included are stories from a World
Trade Center tour guide going through relationship problems just before the
attacks and a lonely old man who lives minutes from the Twin Towers. A group
of schoolchildren from Afghanistan living in an Iranian refugee camp are asked
to contemplate the deaths of people in the United States on 9-11. A boy in Burkina
Faso thinks Osama Bin Laden is hiding in his village. Also included is a segment
on another deadly September 11 decades ago, and one with the viewpoint of a
suicide bomber. www.netflix.com
THE MAY LADY
Screening Date: March 4 Title: THE MAY LADY Year: 1998
Director: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad Country: Iran Length: 88 min Format: DVD Feature,
Color
INTRODUCTION by Behjat Henderson, Gender
Institute, UB
Website: http://www.irfilms.com/the%20may%20lady/may%20lady.htm
Synopsis: Protagonist of this film is Forough, a 42-year-old
female Iranian documentary-maker. She is successful in her work, but faces problems
in her private life. She is divorced and thinking about starting a new relationship.
But her teenage son Mani regards himself as the man about the house. This results
in a covert war of nerves between mother and son. In the meantime Forough’s
latest commission is to make a documentary on "the ideal mother".
She surrounds herself with videotapes on which women talk about the social problems
they experience, such as the painful consequences of the war with Iraq. The
differences with Forough’s feelings become painfully apparent.
http://www.irfilms.com/the%20may%20lady/may%20lady.htm
AMY’S ORGASM
Screening Date: March 11 Title: AMY'S ORGASM Year: 2002
Director: Julie Davis Country: U.S.A Length: 85 min. Format: 35 mm Feature,
Color
INTRODUCTION TBA
Website: n/a
Synopsis: Writer-director Julie Davis also plays the lead in
this witty, liberating film. She stars as Amy, a successful author of self-help
books, whose main thesis is that women don't need men to feel fulfilled. Ironically,
Amy isn't quite sure she believes her own words, and she is put to the test
when she appears on the show of a macho radio shock jock (Nick Chinlund). Surprisingly,
the unlikely pair falls for each other, but must then overcome their own insecurities
before they can be truly happy. The New York Times christened Davis "the
female Woody Allen."
http://www.amctv.com/show/detail/0%2C%2C61691-1-EST%2C00.html
Last updated on
February 4, 2004
by Sandra Boero-Imwinkelried, srb3@buffalo.edu.
Visited
Around the world, women's lives, realities, and viewpoints are conveyed through the medium of film. Come see what women are up to!