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10th International Filmmor Women's Film Festival March 10–18, 2012
Life Goes By. A Woman Sees It. She Makes A Film.
In Homage to Women Who Make Movies Out of Life.
100 Years of Feminist Cinema, 10 Years of Filmmor.
İstanbul Modern Cinema hosts the 10th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels. Held between March 10-18 the festival brings together this year films from the history of feminist cinema and marvelous films from previous Filmmor festivals. Starting with Alice Guy-Blaché, who shot the first narrative film in the history of world cinema, a total of 35 films, both short and feature-length, by pioneering directors of film history will be screened at İstanbul Modern.
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Our Times Bani-Etemad's film focuses on the Iranian elections of 2002 and the role of women in Iranian society. The filmmaker follows a group of women who run for office and gradually narrows her view to the plight of one woman who attempts a heroic but unsuccessful run for the presidency. 70-80-90, Innocent, Insolent, Enticing Women in Turkish cinema are rarely narrators and mostly subject in films directed mostly by men. They are Innocent, Insolent or Enticing, but always two-dimensional: either "good" or "bad". But how real is their goodness or malignity? Why are they never taken seriously, be trusted or never forgiven but always punished? In the film, we follow Alin Taşçıyan, Arzu Okay, Hülya Uğur Tanrıöver, Lale Belkis, Agah Özgüç, Ülkü Erakalın and the audience to see how Yeşilçam films treat women. Sisters, Learn to Doubt First! The Ideas and Activities of Kikue Yamakawa In Japan, during the Meiji Taisho period when a modern state based on capitalist economy was built, patriarchy supresses women and complicates their lives at home and at work. Living in this period, Kiku Yamakawa claimed that gender equality could solve all the labor problems and that the rights of all people could be protected. She thus created her own socialist feminist theory. The documentary focuses on the life and times of Kiku Yamakawa while questioning the issues on gender equality and human rights both in Japan and all over the world today. Bodies Without Souls Through the story of Ayşe Tükrükçü, a former sex worker who had been a candidate in the parliamentary elections in 2007, the film tells the story of women forced to prostitution, their fight to escape this industry as well as their struggle to survive despite familial and economic problems. Water, Salt, Flour In the political atmosphere of the 90s in Argentina, pikete, by which a group of people blocks a road, appeared as a form of demonstration for large groups of people and began to be associated with the movement of piketeros, generally composed of unemployed people. Piketeros are represented in the mainstream media as violent men with masks and clubs in their hands.The film is about the women who are never mentioned in this dominant movement although they make 70% of it. The Trace Sabra lives in a poor industrial town in the south of Tunisia and tries to escape the constraints of traditional family life. It is a culture she loves but finds suffocating, for it shuts women away. The film reveals the male-dominated culture in Tunisia through sections from Sabra’s life by mixing present and past through flashbacks. The House is Black Set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, the documentary The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness," of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude. A Few Brave People The people of Çağlayan, İkizdere and Senoz -three valleys in the Black Sea region- are at a loss about what to do with the government’s plans to build dozens of hydroelectric plants in their valleys. They cannot make sense of the fact that their rivers -a lifeline, teacher and inspiration- are to be rented out to private companies to exploit for the next 49 years. The authorities tell them that this is a must, necessary for Turkey’s development and energy independence. Then, they sign the rivers off, and immediately begin construction in Şenöz. Trees are cut off, massive water pipes are laid, and as the river goes quiet, it is as if the locals in Şenöz slowly begin to expire. In İkizdere, there are those who believe the dams will mean more employment, and then, there are those who are determined to resist this brutal intervention to their lives. Aware of what happened in Şenöz and İkizdere, people in Çağlayan begin a determined campaign against the state and its corporations. Shooting Women Featuring more than 50 camerawomen from around the world, and shot over a period of six years, Shooting Women, by pioneering filmmaker and cinema studies professor Alexis Krasilovsky, celebrates the amazing talent and unflinching spirit of image-making women from the sets of Hollywood and Bollywood to the war zones of Afghanistan. Settlement Settlementexamines the implementation of Compensation Law no.5233 for the compensation of lost and damages caused by the forced migration and evacuation of villages in Vanduring the State of Emergency period. Grandma's Tattoos “My grandmother was a bit strange. Nobody loved her, she never hugged. The blue tattoos on his face and on her hands were horrifying. Tattoos that seemed like satanic signs coming from a dark world were appalling. What was wrong with my grandmother, why was she so strange? Who made these tattoos? But it was wrong to ask these questions. It was forbidden to talk about grandmother.” To explore the story of her grandmother Khanoum’s strange tattoos, the director makes a journey in the history of her own family. In this journey that goes back to 1915, she pursues a story previously untold about war, deportation, sexual violence and about what women endured. Yoshiko&Yuriko In 1924, Yoshiko works as a magazine editor. Yuriko is a popular writer. Yoshiko and Yuriko suddenly understand that they are created for each other and they begin to live a passionate and deep relationship. To decide whether this relationship is love or friendship, Yoshiko and Yuriko investigate their deep bonds and thus further deepen their passion.
100 Years of Feminist Cinema Participants: Alin Taşçıyan, Hülya Uğur Tanrıöver, Kay Armatage, Marie Mandy, Necla Algan Date: 10.03.2012 Place: İstanbul Modern Time: 17:00
Shorts Short 1 Falling Leaves One autumn day, Dr. Earl Headley is about to prove that he has found a miraculous remedy for tuberculosis. In a place not far from him, Winifred is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Her mother and her younger sister, Trixy, are overwhelmed with the news. The family doctors say that Winifred will die when the last leaf falls. Trixy decides to do everything possible to save her sister. The Consequences of Feminism / In the Year 2000 In this film, Alice Guy-Blaché projects the world almost a hundred years later and imagines the year 2000. In an ironic language, she explains how men and women will live and how it will end up. The Smiling Madame Beudet One of the first examples of feminist cinema, the film tells the story of an intelligent woman trapped in a loveless marriage. Her husband always does a stupid joke by pulling the trigger of an unloaded gun that he puts on his head. One day, the woman decides to load gun but then, feeling remorse, she tries to unload it. But this time, her husband aims the gun at her. The Seashell and the Clergyman Obsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own desires. Meshes of the Afternoon A solitary flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a phone off the hook: discordant images a woman sees as she comes home. She naps and, perhaps, dreams. She sees a hooded figure going down the driveway. The knife is on the stair, then in her bed. Can these dream-like sequences end happily?
Shorts 2 The Sardines Tin Eva is a little mermaid. One day, she sees the young fisherman Emile and falls in love with him. She jumps into his fishing net and finds herself in a sardine box ... All I Know is that I Know Nothing Sofia’s life suddenly changes when she finds her son’s philosophy textbook. With the book in her hand, Sophia helps her friend Filomena with her marriage problems but discovers also the black holes of "Enlightenment" that try to supress women. Dolls Factory Anna works in a doll factory. Her whole life revolves around performing mechanical motions to insert the dolls' eyes. But a small change at her work changes her life forever. Through the Window Yoni and Shira are seen kissing through the window of the family home by Yoni's mother and suddenly find themselves the object of her attention. Yoni is torn between her great love and her family. Deep Sea Fish The film invites us to Istanbul to have a walk on the streets of Cihangir. The person that will accompany us is in an area where past and present, consciousness and unconsciousness are tangled. Is it possible to reshape and describe erased memories? Feminine, Masculine In the male dominated society of Iran, Farahnaz Shiri, the first female bus driver in Tehran, has made her own little society in her bus. In Iran there are different sections for men and women on public buses. But in Mrs. Shiri’s bus everything is vice-versa. She is the governor and the only law maker of her own little society. In her bus, men must enter from the backdoor entrance and must sit or stay in the limited zone at the end of the bus.
Shorts 3 29. Toplayıcı / The Gatherer / La Recolectora Sara is unable to cry. She is looking for tears to be able to love, to feel and to continue to live. A Springtime Melody On a beautiful spring day, Maria, 35, receives a fatal diagnosis. She finds herself in a surreal state. All beauty and happiness she sees is in contrast to the bleakness of her situation. Next This film is about all of us. Because everyone is the next from the very beginning. And becomes the next in the end. Sexy Inc. Our Children Under Influence Sophie Bissonnette's documentary analyzes the hypersexualization of our environment and its noxious effects on young people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticize the unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding them with sexual and sexist images. Sexy Inc. suggests various ways of countering hypersexualization and the eroticization of childhood and invites us to rally against this worrying phenomenon.
Shorts 4 By Any Means Necessary Züleyha sees the same nightmare, frequently. Ebru is in love with Züleyha, madly. The child is capable of doing anything for his sister, blindly... The Backyard Escaping from the chaos of the modern world, a woman gets away from the city, enters in a lush garden and has a sigh of relief. In Out In Out is about a Turkish filmmaker participated in a documentary project organized in Europe and her story of probation and deportation at the landborders of Serbia and Bulgaria. The documentary consisting of three main parts visualizes the concept of border and aims to raise questions about the various kinds of citizenship status and the procedures conducted during the border transitions between countries. Sex Shops in Istanbul A look to the the sex industry through short interviews with owners of sex shops in Istanbul. Obezones An obese girl, whose life is full o challenges and prejudices, decides to take a stand. Till Death Do Us Part A woman and a man are stuck in an elevator. First, they don’t even understand each other’s language. While the woman panics and looks for ways to get out, the man seems at ease because he believes that they both have died and that they are not in an elevator, but in limbo.
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SCREENING SCHEDULE |
The festival’s permanent section Women’s Cinema presents 19 recent films from various countries most of which will be screened for the first time in Turkey. The special section Tunisia’s Jasmines will present Kalthoum Bornaz’s The Other Half of the Sky about fraternal twins Selim and Selime who have a problematic relationship with their widowed father, and Nejia Ben Mabrouk’s The Trace which reveals Tunisia’s patriarchal culture through scenes from the present life and the childhood at age ten of Sabra who loves her nation and culture but suffocates from the pressure.
Among the festival’s other activities are a panel entitled 100 Years of Feminist Cinema on Saturday March 10 at 17.00 and a workshop-interview on Sunday, March 18 at 17.00 with Rakhshan Bani-Edemad.