Balkan Insight

Women’s Film Festival

Belgrade | 29 May 2009 | By David Galic
 

The Anti-Trafficking Centre will be organising the first ever festival of women’s films in the region this weekend. The festival aims to demonstrate and promote female creativity in the film industry, and also to highlight themes and topics that are important to women around the world. The Belgrade public rarely has an opportunity to see such movies, so this is a perfect opportunity to get to know the scene, the people behind it and some of the most important and influential female writers and directors.

The three most prominent guests at the festival will be female filmmakers, Britain’s Jocelyn Cammack, Leena Manimekalai from India, and American, Therese Shechter, who will give detailed presentations of their works and the goals behind their films.

The three filmmakers will spend the weekend in direct contact with attendees, in panel discussions, comparing the position of women in the industry around the world.

There will be a total of 13 films shown over the weekend, with the festival taking place from Friday to Sunday in Belgrade’s Dom Omladine. Accompanying the features will be animated films, documentaries, and art exhibitions, roundtable discussions and lectures, along with parties and various gatherings to promote the cause.

Cammack’s ‘The Time of Their Lives’ follows the lives of three woman - a journalist, an anti-war activist and a communist party member - the twist being that they are all close to 100 years old.

Manimekalai also follows three female characters in her movie, one grave digger, one fisherwoman and a funeral singer, all trying to break free from the traditional roles assigned to women in Indian culture, in her film ‘Goddesses.’

Shechter, on the other hand, has created a humorous documentary posing questions about feminism—how far it has gone today and whether it has achieved any of the goals that were expected of it in the early days.

The organisers of the festival, the Anti-Trafficking Centre, which educates against and works to help victims of human trafficking, more often than not young females, have set up the festival to be as interactive as possible. The Centre’s goal is to break down barriers, taboos and prejudice against women in film and women in general.

With help from similar-minded organisations such as America’s Women Make Movies and the British, Bird’s Eye View, and with contributions from the city of Belgrade and various non-governmental organisations, the Anti-Trafficking Centre has developed a festival that it hopes will garner enough attention to make it an annual event.

Additional information on ticket prices, festival programmes and showing times can be found at the festival’s official website http://www.fzf.rs